


The Bud of Our Love

by LittleMissLuna



Series: The Cafe Collection [2]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Casual Sex, Does Jumin Han Is Gay?, F/F, F/M, M/M, everyone does is gay, jumin han does is gay, my asexual ass can't write sex scenes so I didn't even try, please comment so I write faster, seriously it takes me like ten thousand years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9548375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissLuna/pseuds/LittleMissLuna
Summary: After V dumps him to pursue Rika, Jumin Han sleeps with an actor he meets in a bar. Zen is annoying and unmannered, and as they continue their explicit relationship, Jumin vows to keep feelings out of it. But, as he finds himself growing closer to Zen through shared secrets, he starts to wonder what he's gotten himself into.Companion piece to "A Place for the Two of Us." It's recommended you read that first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm finally starting this new fic! It starts off before and will eventually intersect and build on the events of "A Place for the Two of Us," one of the other fics in this series. It's helpful to read that first, as I'll be mentioning but not fully describing some events from that story.
> 
> Like the other fic, this one will follow Jaehee's good end. The name is from V's favorite quote in the Mystic Messenger VIP guidebook.

VISUAL NOVEL MODE: JUMIN HAN

“Well?” says thirteen year old Jumin Han, crossing his arms over his chest. He is attempting to appear calm, tries to stop himself from fidgeting with his tie. The maid had chosen a striped tie for him today. Jumin likes stripes. He’s always felt better when he’s wearing them. Perhaps that was why he’d decided today was the day to make his proposition to V.

The boy in question runs a hand through his teal hair. “Jumin, you’re shaking.”

Jumin looks down at his feet. V is right, he’s trembling horribly. With considerable effort he raises his gaze to meet with his friend’s. “I would appreciate an answer.”

V smiles and gets up from where he’s perched on the edge of Jumin’s bed. He approaches Jumin cautiously, the way he might approach a small animal with the intention of snapping a photograph. He takes Jumin’s hands in his own and intertwines their fingers.

“Of course it’s yes. I feel the same.”

Jumin breathes a sigh of relief. He’s never been good at reading emotions, something V would occasionally tease him about. Despite his age he’s made more than a few girls cry due to what his teachers call his “deplorable social ignorance.” But none of that matters now. He raises one of V’s hands and kisses it, squeezes it in his own grasp, enjoying the reality that it’s now his.

“I’m glad,” he says. “I do not know what I’d have done if you’d rejected me.”

V laughs heartily. “It took you longer than I thought it would. I was sure you’d do it last month.”

Jumin is taken aback. “You’ve known, then. Was I too obvious?”

V shakes his head. “It’s not that. But I’ve never had trouble reading you, for some reason.”

“Yes,” Jumin agrees, pulling his friend closer into his chest. “I suppose that’s why I love you.”

“Ah,” V says, pulling out of Jumin’s embrace to rustle around in his school bag. A few moments later he pulls out a polaroid camera. “To commemorate our first day as lovers,” he says, holding it up.

Jumin doesn’t usually like to be photographed, but he makes an exception in this case. They sit on the bed attempting to pose themselves as V raises the camera above their heads for the perfect shot.

The flash blinds him. Everything around him goes dark, and he’s hit with a strange feeling of vertigo. He closes his eyes and rubs them to clear his vision. When he opens them again, he’s in his penthouse. V is still standing in front of him, now seven years older, eyes once shining with affection now filled with regret.

“I’m so sorry, Jumin,” he says, head bowing in apology. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?” Jumin says, reluctant, as though the word is being torn from his throat.

“I’ve met someone,” V continues in a pleading tone. “A woman. At one of my exhibits.”

The world stops. Jumin feels like all the warmth has been sucked out of the room. V is breaking up with him? After so long? What does he mean he can’t do this anymore?

“Jumin,” V starts after an uncomfortable period of silence. He tries to put a hand on Jumin’s shoulder, but Jumin slaps it away.

“Don’t touch me,” he spits, suddenly vividly angry. He can see the pain in his friend’s expression but he has no intention of trying to understand him right now.

“I’m sorry,” V repeats, tears now ghosting silently down his cheeks. “It’s just-”

“Do you love her?” interrupts Jumin.

V pauses. “Do I-”

“Love her?”

“No.”

“Then-”

V shakes his head. “Not yet. But I think I can.”

Jumin feels sick. There’s a half-empty glass of wine on the counter. He briefly considers smashing it before thinking better of himself. He chooses instead to slam his fist on the counter, so hard everything on the surface shakes.

“If you are going to do this to me after all this time,” he says in as calm a tone as he can muster. “At least don’t pretend this is about love. This is you taking the easy way out.”

V drops his eyes to the floor defeatedly. “It’s better this way. This country isn’t kind to people like us. I’m sure Rika can introduce you to one of her friends, and then-”

“How  _ dare _ you-” Jumin begins, his fist curling up at his side again, fingernails pressing deep welts into his palm. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He is becoming too emotional, which is never a good sign. He forces himself into a kitchen chair and, staring at his feet, mumbles, “Please leave.”

V hesitates a moment before complying. When Jumin hears him unlatch the front door, he’s suddenly hit with the desire to be vindictive. He yells to V’s back:

“I didn’t know you were such a coward.”

Another pause, then the shuffling of feet and the click of a closed door. Jumin wonders if he’d succeeded. He rarely said things purely out of spite, but in this case he’d aimed to make his words cut deep. Rage and sorrow are swirling inside him like ghosts, spreading through his veins, making him unable to think straight. He gives V a few moments to walk out of earshot before grabbing the wine glass and throwing it against the wall.

Two years in the future, Jumin Han screams and jolts awake in bed.

 

-

-

 

He takes a shower to cleanse himself of cold sweat. He hasn’t had that dream in months. Fortunately he’d only woken up an hour earlier than normal. He spends the extra time with Elizabeth the 3rd, admiring her elegant yawns and blinking blue eyes.

V and Rika had given her to him not long after the events of his dream. He’d resisted the idea of getting a cat, but when he’d held her for the first time he knew she was special. She was so small and defenseless. Here was something he could protect and provide for. Here was someone who would never leave him.

After some quality time, he gently places her on the rug and goes into his room to change into a suit. Today’s suit has been hanging at the front of the closet for a week now. Pinstripes, his favorite. He always saved this suit for special occasions, and tonight was one such event. Tonight he had been invited to the theater with V and Rika. Ordinarily he’d have refused, but he’d already offered a thinly veiled excuse to avoid going to some event last week. He couldn’t keep turning them down forever.

He thinks about V during his ride to work. After V had dumped him, they didn’t speak for a month, but eventually Jumin realized he shouldn’t ruin their friendship over a failed romantic entanglement.

Well, that’s what he told V, anyway. The truth is, Jumin couldn’t bear the thought of life without the only person who seemed to truly understand him. So he’d swallowed his feelings, a practice that came unusually naturally to him, channeled his obsessions into Elizabeth the 3rd, and decided to move on with his life.

This did not mean he had any plans to accept Rika, but the problem was, from the moment they were introduced, Jumin  _ liked  _ Rika. She was charming and beautiful, knowledgable about people and interested in all manner of things. She seemed to understand Jumin nearly as well as V, and her selfless nature led her to try and help him any way she could. Jumin found that, try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her or even dislike her. He understood why V had left him for her. Had he met her before V, Jumin might have fallen for her himself.

“Mr. Han, we’ve arrived.”

Driver Kim startles Jumin from his reverie. Jumin thanks him and gets out of the car, sighing as he walks through the security checkpoints into his father’s building. As much as he likes Rika, he doesn’t like seeing her with V. The two of them are too dazzling, too happy together. It’s painful.

Oh well, thinks Jumin as he enters the elevator. He’s got a long day of work before he goes into battle, work that wouldn’t be made any easier by his father’s constant flirting with his chief assistant. He really should hire a new one.

 

-

-

 

Rika had somehow gotten them front row tickets, but Jumin hadn’t been able to concentrate on the play at all. When prompted about it afterwards, he just nods and agrees with whatever Rika says. She has no end of praise for one of the actors, although Jumin couldn't tell you which one.

“He’s so talented!” she cries as they filter out of the theater with the rest of the crowd. “Honestly, I know he only had a support role but he shines more brightly than any of the leads!”

“I agree,” says V, taking her hand. “I wonder if he’ll allow me to take some photographs.”

Rika’s eyes light up at the thought. “How wonderful! I’m sure I can convince him. He was a little taken aback when I met him last weekend but he’s really warmed up to me lately.”

Jumin smiles, surprised to find it genuine. “I’m certain of it as well. You have a great talent for convincing people.” Despite the general slump in his mood, Jumin means this as a sincere compliment.

“Shall we go to dinner, my love?” V says to Rika, who nods.

“I’m starving. Jumin, you are joining us, right?”

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. I have an early morning tomorrow and Elizabeth has been alone all day.”

Rika sighs. “You really do love that cat. We’ll see you later, then!”

When the three of them reach the street, Jumin heads in the other direction. He considers keeping his word, calling Driver Kim to pick him up and returning to his penthouse. Instead, he tucks into a small bar near the theater and orders a glass of red wine.

The bar is filled with theater patrons talking about the night’s performance. There’s a group of particularly annoying women cackling in a corner booth, every so often emitting high pitched shrieks of mirth. Jumin does his best to drown out the noise and focus on the wine. It’s terrible quality, a well-drink ordered by color rather than varietal. He decides there’s no sense in savoring it. He downs the glass and orders another.

Halfway through his second glass, someone shouts at him from across the bar. “Hey!”

There’s nobody there he knows, so he assumes it’s a mistake. A minute later, someone approaches him from behind.

“Hey!” the man says again. “Mr-sits-in-the-front-row-and-doesn’t-pay-attention!”

Jumin swings around on his barstool. Inches from him and pointing in his face is a vaguely familiar-looking white haired man.

“Pardon?” says Jumin.

The man screws up his face in anger. “The play, you asshole! Don’t you know how rude it is to not even pretend to focus on what’s in front of you? How do you think the leads felt looking out into the audience and seeing some jerk with his eyes glazed over in the front row?”

Jumin blinks. At least that answers the question of where Jumin has seen him before.

“Oy! Are you listening to me? Are you drunk?”

Jumin scowls. “Not enough.”

Not even close, more like. Jumin could drink with the best of them, and he wasn’t even remotely close to drunk. But he hopes by being catty the white-haired actor will leave him alone.

Unfortunately, his snideness just seems to irritate the man further. “Listen here! I want an apology for the entire cast-”

A woman appears behind him and puts an arm around his shoulder. She’s from the loud table in the back. “Zen, don’t let this guy bother you. Come back to the table and tell us more of your stories!”

Zen. Isn’t that the name of the actor Rika likes?  _ This  _ overzealous idiot?

Jumin examines him as he coos to his fan, stroking her hair and telling her he’ll be right back. Upon closer inspection, Jumin understands a little. This man _is_ devastatingly handsome, with sharp features, perfect skin and an odd ethereal glow that seems to linger around him like an aura. It’s no wonder V wants to photograph him.

Outer beauty, however, doesn’t change the fact that he’s irritating. Zen sends the girl away and returns to glaring at Jumin, who briefly attempts to plot an escape route.

“Look, like I was saying,” Zen asserts loudly. “I want you to apologize-”

“Stop talking,” Jumin says calmly, and, on a complete whim, pulls the actor forward by his collar and kisses him.

Jumin expects Zen to force him away, perhaps spit on the floor in disgust. He expects Zen to call him  _ homo  _ or  _ fag  _ or any of a plethora of hackneyed slurs before retreating back to his haven of heteronormativity. He certainly doesn’t expect Zen to kiss back.

But that’s exactly what he does. For a second, anyway. Eventually he does break away, after the squeals of his entourage become overwhelming. He turns to them over his shoulder.

“Ladies! This moron’s become too drunk to function properly. The super kind Zen is going to help him home.”

Despite protests from the women, Zen hoists Jumin onto his shoulder. Jumin tries to escape from his grasp but  _ jesus  _ this man is strong.

“Don’t resist,” Zen mutters into his ear. “Just play along until we get outside.”

Jumin isn’t drunk, but he’s not sober enough to argue at this point. He opens his wallet and throws down a bill that’s infinitely larger than his tab and allows himself to be nearly dragged out of the bar.

When they reach the nearest corner, Zen releases his grip on Jumin and turns to him with lust in his eyes. “So.”

Jumin cocks his head. “So?”

“If  _ that’s  _ what you were looking for, you should have just told me. It gets tiring doing it with women, after all.”

He accentuates  _ that  _ by trailing a finger up Jumin’s torso.

Oh  _ lord,  _ thinks Jumin.

“Okay stranger,” says Zen, licking his lips. “My place or yours?”

Why on earth is this happening? He’d only wanted to spend the evening wallowing in self pity. He’d kissed Zen to shut him up, nothing more. Everything is becoming more complicated than he’d prefer. He’s got to explain the misunderstanding, go home, feed Elizabeth, go to bed. Jumin opens his mouth to tell Zen no.

To his surprise, what comes out is, “Yours.”

 

-

-

 

The sex is explosive to say the least.

There’s something to be said for sleeping with a total stranger. It certainly isn’t anything like sleeping with V. V was lanky and fragile and so, so precious. Jumin made love to him as if he were a butterfly. Zen is all muscle, dense and powerful, and Jumin’s lack of any sort of emotion for him means all delicacy be damned.

Afterwards, Jumin is so tired his mind goes blank.  It’s already mid-morning when he wakes up in Zen's bed, quite alone. He checks his phone: 4 missed calls, all from his chief assistant. He doesn’t think he’s missed any meetings but he vaguely recalls some paperwork he was supposed to do. He gets out of bed and dresses.

He looks at himself in Zen’s full-length mirror. His hair is a little tousled but at least he’d remembered to fold his suit properly before taking it off. Oddly enough, he feels slightly better about V and Rika. Perhaps there is some logic to his father’s frequent affairs after all.

Zen doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the apartment, but just as Jumin makes the decision to depart, the actor returns in green tracksuit, sweating and out of breath.

“Oh...hah...you’re up,” Zen pants, taking a bottle of water from his fridge and chugging it. He pulls out a chair from his kitchen table and offers it to Jumin.

“You’re quite trusting to leave a stranger alone in your apartment,” says Jumin, taking the seat.

“I was just running around the neighborhood,” Zen says, throwing the now empty bottle into a basket. “Besides, you’re a CEO, aren’t you? I don’t think you’d steal anything from my place.”

Jumin is taken aback. “You called me stranger yesterday. Were you lying?”

Zen shakes his head. “Last night I didn’t know who you were.”

“Then how-”

Zen smirks. “You said ‘V’ in your sleep.”

Jumin freezes. V had told him once that he talked a bit in his sleep, but he’d never heard it confirmed until now.

“Funny thing about V and Rika,” says Zen, sitting down at the table next to Jumin. “Those two are so charming, but their circle of close friends is actually pretty small. You were sitting next to him in the front row. It wasn’t hard to look you up on Noogle.”

Jumin stares at Zen, trying to analyze his intention. Is he planning on blackmailing him? Does he want hush money for not revealing Jumin’s preferences? No, that can’t be the case. Zen is a public figure too, although on a smaller level, and Jumin could pull the same move. Why then is he telling him this?

“Dude, chill,” says Zen, propping his head up with his elbows on the table. “Don’t go all businessman on me. Any friend of Rika’s is a friend of mine.”

Oh, thinks Jumin. Friendship. He hadn’t considered that. He can almost hear Rika’s voice in the back of his head.  _ That’s sad, Jumin. You have to learn to trust others more. _

Jumin scowls. And who was the one who made it hard for him to trust people?

Zen seems to read his mind. “So, how long have you been in love with V?”

If Jumin had coffee in his mouth, he would have spit it out. “What?”

Zen scrunches his mouth to one side. “Come on, nobody says someone’s name in their sleep platonically. I can almost forgive you for being so distracted last night. Almost. It was still a dick move.”

“Don’t remind me,” says Jumin, getting up abruptly from the table. This conversation is crossing into dangerous territory and he doesn’t want to stick around for it.

“So you admit it,” Zen says, blocking his way.

Jumin attempts to push through, but Zen is stronger. “Why are you so interested?” spits Jumin.

“Because I’m somewhat of a love expert myself. I bet I can help you.”

Jumin chuckles coldly. “Oh? And are you in such a relationship?”

“That’s…” Zen flushes. “Work keeps me busy. I don’t have time for that right now.”

“As I thought,” Jumin says, using Zen’s shock to escape past him. “I’d rather not be lectured by a hypocrite. I’ll be leaving now. Thank you for letting me sleep here."

Zen puffs up his cheeks in a pout. He seems genuinely disappointed Jumin won’t talk to him about his lovelife, or lack thereof.  Perhaps he’d seen those trashy tabloid articles on Noogle speculating about his sexuality and wanted to see if they were true or not. Well, Jumin doesn’t care about those anyway. He certainly doesn’t care about Zen.

As Jumin’s just about out the door, Zen yells at his back: “Oy! Mr. Trust Fund kid!”

Jumin looks back, nonplussed.

Zen continues. “You’re not gonna tell anyone about last night, right? I probably don’t need to say this, but I have some dirt on you if it comes down to it.”

Jumin smiles idly at the threat. “Of course not. There’s no point in starting a rumor that will bring us both down. And if you’re talking about my feelings regarding V, feel free to tell him. I’m fairly certain he already knows.”

 

-

-

 

Jumin reflects for the next few days on Zen, or rather his actions involving Zen. One night stands weren’t his thing, particularly not with V or Rika’s friends. He’d had opportunities, sure. Women always seem to be throwing themselves at him, whether their motivations are pure or not. A few men have also expressed interest. Jumin had ignored them all until Zen, although he can’t credit it to anything other than it being the right place at the right time. Not that it matters. He’ll likely never see Zen again, right?

Or so he thinks, until just a week later when he gets a call from Rika.

“You want to form a non-profit?”

Rika hums in agreement. “I’d like to help people as much as I can, and you know a lot more about forming a business than I do, Jumin.”

“C&R is for profit, although we do hold some non-profit events yearly. Most of them are galas.”

“Gala…” says Rika, considering the word. “Sounds stuffy. I think ‘party’ sounds better, don’t you?”

Jumin agrees. “If you’re set on the idea, I suppose I can help you through the initial process.”

Rika squeals with delight. “Thank you, Jumin! And I have our very first donator lined up. It’s you!”

“Me?”

“Yes! I want you to become Zen’s patron. You remember him from the play last week, right?”

Jumin scowls into the phone. “Yes.”

“Great! I’ve heard he’s struggling to support himself. Just money is one thing, but you have all sorts of connections that could get him off the ground. Why don’t you meet with him to discuss it?”

Jumin thinks about it. He really has no interest in seeing Zen again, but he has no intention of wasting the effort to avoid him either. At any rate, it’s a personal favor for Rika. He has his chief assistant make the appointment.

 

-

-

 

The meeting is all Zen agrees to, however.

Jumin is forced to endure a 45 minute car ride into the deep mountains, only to have Zen reject the offer point blank.

“I want sponsorship from someone who believes in my acting, not some silver spoon rich kid who’s doing it because he was asked,” he says.

Rika is no more tolerant. “Well of course he’d turn it down if you phrase it like that! You shouldn’t have told him I asked you.”

Jumin doesn’t understand. Should he have lied? Told Zen he was his biggest fan, that he’d do anything to help him get into bigger productions? Jumin had learned early on that it didn’t matter what he said. If he told the truth, everyone treated him kindly. If he lied it was the same. If the results are identical, isn’t it better to tell the truth?

Zen’s rejection doesn’t deter Rika from founding her non-profit. Jumin agrees to help her through the process. One evening they sit together at Jumin’s desk filling out paperwork. Rika sighs and drops her pen, allowing it to roll across the surface. Jumin catches it just before it falls in his lap.

“Careful,” he says, returning the pen to her.

“Ugh,” she moans. “I feel like I’ve signed a thousand documents in the last hour. Can’t I just get a stamp or something?”

Jumin shakes his head. “Not if you want them to be legally binding.”

“Boo!” she pouts, tapping the desk impatiently with her thumbs. She sets aside the unfinished pile of papers and stares at Jumin with wide green eyes.

Rika often does this, watches him. It’s what she does when she wants someone to stop what they’re doing and talk to her. It reminds him of Elizabeth the 3rd, how she follows him around the penthouse, looking up like a curious child but never making a sound. Or perhaps Elizabeth reminds him of Rika. It’s getting harder to tell, these days.

She’s not going to stop until he addresses her, and so he sets down his share of the documents and meets her gaze. “Yes?”

“What do you think we should call it?” asks Rika.

“We?” returns Jumin. “It’s your non-profit.”

“It’s  _ ours, _ ” says Rika proudly. “Yours and mine and V’s. Zen’s too if we can get him to join. And I have a few others in mind!”

Jumin can’t help but be impressed. She’s clearly put effort into the idea. He supposes he should try to match it. He holds a finger to his mouth in thought for a moment before suggesting:

“Rika’s Fundraising Association. RFA for short.”

Rika’s eyes flash. “English, huh?”

“It’s simple but elegant.”

Rika nods. “It’s perfect.”

 

-

-

 

Once the RFA is officially founded, Rika gets hard to work organizing their first party. There are dates to be set, guests to be invited, decor, food, performers and music… Rika delegates most of the tasks to the others and handles the interpersonal things herself. V tells Jumin that she’s never shined brighter. Jumin says nothing but silently agrees.

Zen eventually agrees to join the organization, although he seems less than pleased about seeing Jumin on a regular basis. Apparently he decided after their last meeting that he can’t stand Jumin, and spends most meetings criticising Jumin’s suggestions for being unrealistic or too pertinent to cats.

“I’m telling you, it’s an elegant party so it makes no sense to have banners shaped like paw prints! And quit ending your sentences with ‘meow’ with that stoic face! It’s creepy.”

Neither of them bring up the one night stand. Jumin thinks it’s for the best.

In addition to Zen, Rika introduces Jumin to two new members.

The first is Rika’s cousin Yoosung, a bright and studious high schooler whom Jumin immediately targets as a future intern for his company. Yoosung seems to view Rika as an idol and does everything she tells him with the utmost admiration. He doesn’t seem to have much of a specialty except for being particularly hard-working, but his constant presence and cheery attitude tend to keep everyone focused at meetings.

The second is Luciel, or, as his online handle proclaims, 707. Luciel met Rika and V at church, and, in addition to genius level intelligence, possesses a knack for electronics and computers. Although he rarely shows up in person due to his secretive career, Luciel creates a phone app with everything the RFA members need to communicate, and frequently appears for intermittent spurts in the chatroom, if only to spam everyone with emojis of himself. He also has an unspoken fondness for Yoosung, which manifests in a constant tendency to tease the boy. Yoosung doesn’t help by being incredibly gullible. 

Jumin had thought that the RFA would be a slightly annoying but necessary part of his life, but to his surprise he finds he enjoys the ritual of attending meetings. Aside from Zen, whom he finds extremely annoying, Jumin develops a fondness for his new friends. RFA provides an escape from the humdrum of daily life and especially his father, whom he loves dearly but has a terrible habit of collecting girlfriends.

After what must be an entire year of planning, the party is held. Even the enigmatic Luciel attends. It’s perfect down to a T thanks to everyone’s hard work, but Rika is clearly the brightest star of the bunch. She manages to invite over a hundred unique organizations and raise thousands of dollars for charity in a single evening. It’s such a success that they immediately go into planning for a second one.

Everything seems to be going well until a series of events occur to show Jumin that he shouldn’t get used to such happiness.

It begins one morning when he walks into work and notices none of the other employees look up to greet him. They all seem to be hiding their eyes.

Jumin would not consider anyone in his department his friend, but he still manages to maintain a professional relationship with his employees. Despite his brusque demeanor he’s been told by most of them at least once how much they respect him. Usually they would rise as he walked past their desk with a “Good morning, Mr. Han!” or at the very least a nod and a smile. When even his secretary stares down at her shoes, he knows to expect bad news.

The cause of the solemn atmosphere is the letter of resignation Jumin finds lying on his desk. It’s from his chief assistant. Jumin reads and rereads the letter without taking any of it in. He drops it in mid-air, letting it flutter to the ground, and sits down at his desk with his hands steepled under his chin.

After a couple of minutes, he hears the other staff let out deep breaths and chat quietly amongst themselves. He attempts to return to his work, but finds himself distracted by the chatter. Over the course of a few hours he pieces together, through gossip, the events of the previous evening.

It was his father.  _ Again. _

The most recent chief assistant had been pretty, bubbly and very feminine. Jumin hadn’t cared about any quality other than her work ethic, but of course, Director Han had set his sight on her immediately. More than once Jumin had walked in on them flirting, an annoying habit his father refused to rid himself of, but one which Jumin decided he would turn a blind eye two so long as the work got done.

According to office chatter, however, the chief assistant had interpreted his father’s actions as more than just flirting. Apparently last night she’d attempted to seduce him and, after being turned away, decided to quit out of sheer humiliation.

Jumin has no way to confirm this, but he admits that, knowing his father, it seems likely to be true. Ultimately what matters is not the truth but rather the fact that he is now missing a very important member of staff.

Over the next few days he pulls around 400 resumes from the ever-growing file in the front office. C&R seems to acquire new applicants on an almost daily basis, so the trouble tends to be less about finding someone qualified and more about finding someone whom Jumin can tolerate. The pile on his desk is daunting, and just as he’s contemplating finally delving into it, V shows up at his office with news: his engagement to Rika.

Jumin knew this day was coming--it was inevitable, really--but the announcement still hits him like a dull blow to his chest. He manages to choke out some good wishes, blaming his aloofness on the recent staffing fiasco. If V can tell how Jumin is feeling, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he  hands Jumin another resume, which Jumin glosses over. The name reads Jaehee Kang.

Jumin knows after a moment that she has all the necessary qualifications. As usual, V seems to know exactly what Jumin wants. Rather than ending his search here and now, Jumin chooses to ignore V’s suggestion. Why should this man who abandoned him still proclaim to know him best? Bitterly, Jumin slips the resume into the garbage as soon at V departs.

Hours later, he lifts it back out and sticks it in the middle of the pile on his desk.

 

-

-

 

_ NEW MESSAGE FROM JUMIN HAN: _

 

_ Congratulations, Rika. _

 

-

-

 

400 resumes is far too many for Jumin to bother with. Instead he instructs several interns to sift through them and trash any that don’t meet his standards of quality.

They whittle down the pile by half by removing any male applicants (women are more organized and less likely to feel the need to compete with Jumin) and by another quarter through expelling anything with spelling or grammatical errors. From the remaining hundred, 30 more are removed for having  _ typing  _ listed under the skills category (honestly, it’s the 21st century do they think being able to type is impressive?) and 25 more get the same treatment for including their date of birth (useless information).

The 45 applicants that make it through this first screening are invited to the C&R building for 15-minute interviews with his secretaries. Jumin mandates the disqualification of anyone wearing too much perfume or makeup, and anyone who shows up wearing primarily a color other than black, gray or navy. This leaves eleven women, one of which is, unsurprisingly, Jaehee Kang.  Jumin decides to interview these finalists at length himself.

He schedules three for Monday and two each day for the rest of the week. Miss Kang’s interview is Wednesday afternoon.

By Tuesday evening Jumin is already exhausted. He hasn’t had this much human contact since the RFA party. Despite the ability to be charming when necessary, Jumin is by nature an introvert. It’s part of the reason he invented the chief assistant position. It was helpful to only have to learn how to deal with one person and have her communicate with everyone else for him. It doesn’t help that the women who apply for this position tend to be extremely outgoing. Jumin’s had enough surface-level banter for a lifetime. He spends his evening sipping wine with Elizabeth curled in his lap, trying to catch his breath.

When Wednesday afternoon rolls around, he finds Miss Kang waiting outside his office, fifteen minutes before their agreed-upon interview time. Jumin admits he’s grown curious about what kind of person she is. V had recommended her, after all. It’s apparent from the moment she opens her mouth that she’s perfect for the position, and not just because she’s knowledgeable and articulate.

Jaehee Kang is a woman of exactness. Her demeanor is professional and polite, and she thanks Jumin for the interview without belittling herself by saying it’s an honor to meet him as so many others did. Her answers are short, accurate and to the point. She looks him straight in the eye and doesn’t seem to be attracted to him at all.

She’s wearing a smart blazer and matching skirt which are cleaned and pressed but clearly many years old, suggesting she hasn’t been able to purchase a new set recently. The way she talks makes it clear she wants this job for security and has little passion for the field. This suits Jumin just fine. He’d rather have someone who needs the job than someone who loves it.

(He isn’t afraid of being hated, only of being left. He tries not to think too hard about why this is.)

While Jaehee Kang is the ideal candidate in many ways, there are a few in which she is not, namely that she is objectively very attractive. Jumin isn’t interested, of course, but his father might be. Miss Kang has long hair, pale skin and a pointed face with inquisitive amber eyes. She has a large chest, a small waist and very long legs. Though she doesn’t act in any way as though she is aware of her own charms, Jumin would rather not take the risk. He supposes there isn’t anything he can do about her body, but something could be done about the rest. He tells Miss Kang she has the job if she comes into work the next day with short hair and something to cover her face.

He’s half certain he’ll never see her again, but in the morning she’s waiting for him outside his office, clipboard and coffee in hand, with closely cropped hair and thin glasses.

He tells his secretary to cancel the remaining interviews.

 

-

-

 

He doesn’t want to admit it, but Jumin regrets not hiring Assistant Kang as soon as V slipped her resume into his hands.

She is, by and large, the most efficient employee he’s ever had, completing every task with both speed and accuracy. Jumin starts her off slowly but time and time again, she proves herself to be capable of handling more work. At first she is fairly timid, speaking only when spoken to and agreeing without dispute to take on the more unusual jobs Jumin assigns to her, including research into pen inks and various cat-related projects. As the months pass, however, she becomes more brazen about her opinions, always faithfully completing the tasks but not before first suggesting several more conventional alternatives.

Although he’d rather do away with any dissent, it doesn’t tarnish his opinion of Assistant Kang. The fact that she doesn’t mindlessly agree with everything he says proves her capable of critical thinking, and she’s concerned enough with job security to ultimately do what he tells her in the end.

Her biggest downfall is that she, like Rika, is an enormous fan of Zen. Jumin discovers this after bringing her along to an RFA meeting to help carry materials. When she sees Zen sprawled out on V’s couch she squeals in a way he’d never thought possible. She spends the entire meeting nervously glancing at him out of the corners of her eyes. Rika, thrilled to bits about having another woman around, immediately extends an invitation to Assistant Kang, who accepts without hesitation.

“I’m sure I don’t have to say this, but as my assistant and fellow RFA member it would be unwise for you to date Zen,” Jumin tells her that evening. He’s not interested in the complications having an assistant in a relationship would involve, and he’s  _ really  _ not interested in Zen hanging around more than he already does, nagging Jumin for having been born rich and spoiling his cat-themed fun.

Assistant Kang looks incredulous at the thought. “Mr. Han, please do not insult me. I have no intention of crossing the sacred celebrity-fan line. It is enough that I can look upon his visage at such close proximity.”

It’s easy to forget due to her current androgynous look, but Assistant Kang  _ is  _ a woman after all. He’s heard women perceive beauty more strongly than men. He wonders if that’s why Zen seems to have such a strong effect on her, and Rika as well. At any rate, the next few meetings prove he has nothing to worry about. After getting over her initial shock, Assistant Kang returns to her professional demeanor even when speaking directly to Zen, only revealing her inner fan privately to Rika when he departs.

With Assistant Kang’s work ethic, the RFA holds a second party of even grander scale than the first, hosting nearly double the guests and earning nearly three times the previous record in donations. Despite Zen mocking him for his wine selection, Jumin manages to have an enjoyable time. He almost forgets the shining peridot ring on Rika’s finger. Almost.

Jumin doesn’t see V often in the months that follow. This is not unusual. Even in his teens, V would often disappear on an adventure for days or weeks at a time, always reappearing with some awe-inspiring story and several new photographs. At any rate,  Rika says a wedding is just a special party, and they’ve been too busy planning RFA events thus far to focus on their own. Jumin suspects they're spending their evenings pouring over invitations and color schemes.

Jumin is used to not communication with V. This is why, when he’s woken by a 2-am phone call and see’s V’s name flashing on the screen, he knows something is very wrong.

“What happened?” he asks without prefacing it with a greeting.

“Could you...come to my apartment?” says V after a pause. “I’ve had an accident. I need you to drive me to the hospital.”

A piece of ice stabs through Jumin’s heart. “Are you okay?”

Another pause. “I’m fine. It’s my eyes. They’re...anyway, I can’t drive.”

“Is Rika-”

“Rika’s not here.”

Jumin pauses. At two in the morning? That doesn’t make any sense. Unless…

“V...Rika didn’t hurt you, did she?”

V doesn’t say anything.

“ Answer me.”

“Please, Jumin. We’ll talk about it later.”

Jumin pulls on his jacket. “Alright. I’ll be there soon. Wait for me.”

 

-

-

 

 

When Jumin gets to V’s apartment, V is sitting calmly on his couch. He might simply be relaxing if not for the cloth pressed to his face, flecked red with blood.

“You’re here,” he says softly. “Thank you for coming. I’m glad you still have the key I gave you.”

Jumin wants so badly to ask what happened. It looks like V’s eyes have been viciously attacked, and Rika is nowhere to be found. There’s a broken drinking glass on the floor, which Jumin is careful to step over. He comes over to the couch and helps V up, letting him lean on his shoulder, unable to enjoy even the warm sensation of V’s skin against his.

Yes, the story will have to wait. V needs treatment right away. They drive to the hospital in silence. Jumin manages to get him into the emergency room quickly after pointing out that his company basically donated the entire wing. V tells him to wait outside as the doctor peels back the cloth, but Jumin catches a glimpse of the damage as he’s leaving. The skin around V’s eyes seems largely undamaged, but the eyes themselves are heavily injured, as though someone had tried to gouge them out with their bare hands.

V is released a few hours later with bandages wrapped around his eyes. After a tensely silent ride back, Jumin helps him into bed. Rika is nowhere to be found.

“I’m not an idiot,” Jumin says finally after an unbearably long period of quiet. “I saw the glass. I can figure out what happened.”

V sighs sadly, sits up in bed and turns in Jumin’s general direction. “Please don’t tell the others.”

“Of course,” says Jumin. He doesn’t know how he’d explain it anyway. Who would believe Rika capable of such violence? Jumin is having a hard time accepting it himself. “What happened, V?” he asks.

V brings a hand up to his mouth, as though considering carefully his next words. “Rika is...has been...struggling. She’s unwell as of late. I thought I could help her through it but I wasn’t enough. I became too big headed. I thought I was all she needed. I thought…!”

He lets out a wretched sound. Jumin puts a hand on his shoulder. (Not a hug. A hug would be too dangerous.)

“What did the doctors say about your eyes?”

“Some of my vision will return,” says V shakily. “But not permanently. I’ve been told it’ll slowly diminish over time. The best chance I have is a corneal transplant.”

“That’s good,” says Jumin in what he hopes is a comforting voice. “When’s the earliest you can do it? I can probably get you in-”

V shakes his head. “Not yet. First priority is finding Rika. She ran off and I have no idea where she could have gone.”

“You’re joking, surely?”

Another head shake.

Jumin’s grip on V’s shoulder becomes more firm. “You’re a photographer! If you lose your sight-”

“I’d still have Rika,” interrupts V. “But only if I can find her. Can help her.”

Jumin sighs. Truthfully, he’d known V would make this decision from the start. “I can tell there’s no talking you out of it. When will you be able to see enough to begin searching?”

“Thank you for understanding. I think a few days will be enough time.”

Jumin lets go of his friend and stands up, hovering in the doorway. “Then I will stay here for a few days until you recover.”

“Jumin-”

“Don’t misunderstand,” he snaps. “I merely cannot stand the thought of you stumbling around your own apartment attempting to feed and care for yourself with no sight. I am doing this as your friend and nothing else.”

He closes the bedroom door before V can respond and lays down on the couch. He wonders if V believes what he said. If he closes his eyes very tightly, he can almost believe it himself.

-

-

A week passes. Rika doesn’t turn up. Jumin keeps her absence hidden from the RFA, stating she’s out sick with a nasty cold.

After the fourth day, V’s eyes have healed enough for him to begin his search. Donning a pair of dark sunglasses, he travels to all the places he knows Rika adores; the gallery where they first met, the coffee shop where she occasionally chats about Zen with Jaehee, the fountain where he proposed to her.

Jumin leaves the apartment when V can see again and joins the search in his own way. He’s missed four days of work being with V and really can’t afford to miss more. He sends a small team of security officers around the city to scour public footage and question people on foot. Despite their best efforts, Rika seems to have vanished into thin air.

On the afternoon of the seventh day, Jumin is doing paperwork when Assistant Kang knocks on his door. He waves her in and she enters, holding her own cell phone.

“You have a call, Mr. Han,” she says.

“I’m busy,” he says.

She takes a step closer. “It’s V. He says you’re not picking up your own phone.”

Jumin removes his phone from his pocket, on silent from an earlier meeting. Sure enough there are several missed calls from V. He sends Assistant Kang away and presses the return call button on his own screen.

“Have you found her?” he asks as soon as V picks up.

V makes a noise halfway between a sob and a scream.

“Yes,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm trying very hard to keep this as canon-compliant as possible. I know the game states that Zen and Jumin first met when Jumin offered to be his sponsor, but I'm gonna say that the bar was the first time, and they just didn't tell anyone haha.  
> I'm also pretty sure Rika mentions she's engaged to V when she first met Zen, but in the Christmas DLC we learn that Zen was in the RFA four years ago, and that V didn't propose to Rika until after the first party which was also four years ago. So there might be some continuity errors in the game or I just fail at keeping track of these things. Anyway, it's fanfiction.  
> Hope you're all enjoying so far! Comments keep me writing, so if you have anything to say, please let me hear it! Love you all. <3


	2. Chapter 2

VISUAL NOVEL MODE: JUMIN HAN

The body was never found.

That’s what Jumin tells the rest of the RFA. What really happened, according to V, is that Rika’s corpse washed up on the bank of a local river, almost too bloated and rotten to be identified.  They decide their altered reality is much kinder, and would explain the lack of a body at the wake.

Having been a devout catholic, Rika believed in an afterlife. To honor this belief, V holds an unconventional ceremony after her death; not a funeral, per say, but a celebration of Rika’s life, to wish her well on her journey into the unknown.

Despite it being labeled a celebration, the event is as somber as Jumin thought it would be. It’s clear that Rika’s death has a profound effect on the attendees. There are guests from one or both of the parties offering their condolences, pledging to support the RFA in the future. There are friends she made planning the parties, gathering members or simply by chatting them up in the supermarket. Rika’s influence was truly astounding, broader than anyone could have imagined.

For the wake, V has displayed all his portraits of Rika along a wall of the venue. It’s almost unnerving to see her, smiling and happy, and know that she won’t simply appear from behind a corner and announce some grand new idea.

V gives an emotional speech about Rika, the things she did and how they will be continued by the RFA. Jumin scans the audience as he speaks; Yoosung is sobbing quietly in a corner. Assistant Kang dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief. Luciel is facing V but doesn’t seem to see him, eyes glazed and unfocused, as if looking straight through him. Jumin doesn’t try to look for Zen, but he’s unavoidable; dressed in his blindingly white peacoat. Zen isn’t crying, but there’s a deep sadness apparent on his face.

V finishes his speech to a cacophony of applause and what sounds like hundreds of noses being blown. People swarm around him offering their sympathies, and, although his eyes are obscured by dark glasses, Jumin can tell by his body language that he’s uncomfortable.

V was never good with crowds. It’s why he preferred to keep his popularity quiet. The few galleries he hosted were small and never advertised, and he would often submit pieces to contests under pseudonyms. If V can’t even handle fans, Jumin can’t imagine how he must feel, surrounded by people he barely knows. Without thinking, Jumin pushes through the crowd to locate V.

“Apologies,” Jumin says, addressing the crowd. “I need to borrow him for a moment.”

He pulls V by the wrist through a set of double doors to a set of stairs where he sits him down.

“Thank you,” says V. “I was feeling a bit claustrophobic.”

Jumin turns to leave. “It’s nothing. I just thought you might want to be alone.”

“Stay,” says V to Jumin’s back. It sounds more like a command until V says, “Please.”

His intuition is screaming, but Jumin quiets it down and takes a seat next to his friend.

“I haven’t seen you since…” V trails off. Jumin nods.

“How are your eyes?”

V’s tenses his shoulders, opens his mouth and closes it again.

“Show me,” says Jumin.

With tentative fingers, V lifts the dark glasses from his face. The majority of his face is unmarred, but there are several angry red scars on his eyelids. His right eye is nearly clouded over, the left not much better, usual bright color faded to milky turquoise.

“Oh, V…” Jumin says quietly, raising a hand to V’s cheek and gliding his thumb over the scars, feeling the raised flesh. “Please let me make an appointment for you so you can get the surgery.”

V shakes his head. “I’m not ready for that just yet, Jumin. These wounds are the last gift Rika gave to me. I’m sure there’s a reason it happened this way.”

“ _Gift?_ ” parrots Jumin incredulously. “She tried to gouge your eyes out.”

“It was my fault. I wasn’t able to give her the help she needed.”

“What kind of twisted thinking is that? Of course it’s not your fault. You know that.”

V closes his hand over Jumin’s, still cupping his cheek. “I know. But there is a part of me that will always blame myself.” He nestles his face further into Jumin’s palm. “But you’re trying to comfort me, so thank you. You’ve always been able to comfort me in ways nobody else could.”

Jumin is vaguely aware of the face that V’s face is growing closer. When he feels V’s breath on his lips, it’s as if his mind ceases to function. All that exists is the warm sensation of V in front of him, still so familiar after all these years.

“It’s been so long since we’ve been together like this,” he says. Jumin closes his eyes.

“Hey!”

V suddenly pulls away as the double doors swing open. He barely has time to put on his sunglasses before Zen bounds up, striking him swiftly across the cheek.

“I know you’re in pain,” he says firmly to V, expression unreadable behind his glasses. “But that doesn’t give you the right to be cruel. Come on.”

The last words are addressed to Jumin. Zen takes his wrist and pulls him through the doors, taking an exterior hallway leading to the exit rather than re-entering the main chamber.

Jumin takes a few moments to catch up with what’s happening. As soon as he does, he attempts to pull away.

“What the hell are you doing?!” 

“What does it look like?” Zen snaps back. “I’m getting you out of there.”

“Get your hands off of me!” Jumin resists, but Zen just tightens his grip on Jumin’s wrist.

“Why?” says Zen. “So you can go back and make out with the man who rejected you for Rika?”

This thought gives Jumin pause. Was that what had been about to happen? As Zen pulls him into the street, attempting to flag down a cab with his free arm, Jumin reasons that yes, it was.

V, the man who had broken his heart all those years ago, had been about to kiss him. And Jumin was going to let it happen, had practically welcomed it even.

He barely notices as he’s pushed into the cab. Zen barks his address to the driver and climbs in next to Jumin, crossing his legs and letting out an angry sigh.

“Jesus,” he says. “I can’t believe V would take advantage of you like that. I didn’t know he was that kind of person.”

“He did just lose his fiancee,” Jumin replies, more out of a tendency to argue with Zen rather than any real desire to defend V.

“You don’t have to make excuses for him. You’re the victim here, you know? What he did was nothing short of manipulation!”

Jumin stares out the window at the passing city lights. It’s already grown dark. “You seem disproportionately angry, considering _I’m_ the victim.”

He sees Zen ruffle in the window reflection. “Call me a hopeless romantic or whatever, but I can’t stand to see shit like this happen. Especially not when it’s someone I have to see regularly. God, do you know how you look at him? It’s pathetic! You love him so much and this is how he repays those dedicated feelings? You’re damn right I’m angry! Can I smoke in here?”

The cab driver waves a hand in compliance. Zen takes out a black box and a lighter from his coat pocket.

“And you!” he yells, waggling a finger at Jumin after lighting his cigarette. “You’re no better! You were just gonna let it happen! It’s a good thing I followed you when I saw you pull V from the crowd. I just _knew_ something like this-”

“I didn’t ask you to meddle in my affairs,” says Jumin, but he finds he has to consciously stop himself from smiling. As annoying as Zen is, it’s rather refreshing to have someone get angry on his behalf.

Zen dismisses the statement with a wave of his hand, simultaneously flicking cigarette ash out his window. “Just consider it a service from love expert Zen. Oh, we’ve arrived.”

The cab pulls up just outside Zen’s apartment. Jumin is rather surprised when Zen grabs his arm.

“You’re getting out here too, Mr. CEO. You can pay for the ride to thank me.”

Jumin would rather not comply with yet another of Zen’s requests tonight, but his desire to avoid getting into a fight with the increasingly impatient cab driver wins out. He passes a bill into the front seat and follows Zen onto the sidewalk.

“Why am I here, exactly?” he asks as they walk to Zen’s apartment.

“We’re going to do what men do when they’re sad,” says Zen. “Drink.”

 

-

-

 

Zen does not keep wine in his apartment. After turning down the crude and undrinkable light beer Zen has in his fridge, Jumin is offered a bottle of scotch, which the actor claims he received from a fan. For a moment they drink in silence, the only sounds in the kitchen the click of glasses on tables. The scotch is adequate and the company is, for once, not unbearable, although Jumin cannot discredit the alcohol as the source of this newfound tolerance.

“Zen,” he starts after his second glass. “Why did you help me?”

Zen tosses his third beer can across the kitchen and into the recycle bin, where it settles amongst the others with a resounding clatter. He looks Jumin square in the face, clearly not drunk but perhaps bolder than he would be sober.

“Look,” he says. “You’re pretty much the embodiment of everything I hate. You have a good relationship with your family. You have so much money you don’t have to worry about anything. You’re callous and robotic, you don’t understand other people at all or even _try_ to understand them, and you’re weirdly obsessed with goddamn _cats-_ ”

“Stop,” deadpans Jumin. “You’re flattering me too much.”

A light flush creeps into Zen’s cheeks. “What I’m saying is, I’m not really sure why I did what I did either. But I know that nobody, not even you, deserves to be treated that way. Playing with someone else’s feelings is lower than low.”

Jumin takes a sip of his scotch. “I did not expect such a sincere answer.”

The flush blossoms into great splotches of embarrassment. “It’s the beer talking! Anyway, since you asked something, now it’s my turn.”

“Oh?” Jumin cocks his head.

Zen looks away for a second as if pondering the right phrasing. “I was kind of wondering...what it’s like to be in love.”

Jumin swallows a huge gulp of scotch. It burns his throat as it goes down, and he’s barely able to prevent himself from having a coughing fit.

“You okay?” Zen asks as tears well up in Jumin’s eyes.

“Fine,” he says after clearing his throat. “I didn’t think you’d ask something like that is all.”

The color in Zen’s face someone deepens. “It’s just...every relationship I’ve had has followed one of two patterns. One; I’m just not interested in them and we end up breaking up, or two; I try way too hard and they dump me. It’s just...never clicked, you know? So I was curious what it’s like. That’s all.”

“Hmm,” murmurs Jumin, surprised to find himself seriously considering the question. “There’s a quote V used to say to Rika.”

And to me, Jumin doesn’t say.

Zen nods. “What is it?”

“The bud of our love will swell up during the summer wind, and blossom into a beautiful flower next time we meet.”

Jumin wonders if Zen will laugh. It sounds strange even to him, V’s beautiful words emerging from his own mouth. But Zen is looking at him with focus in his sharp red eyes.

“V could always see potential in everything,” Jumin continues. “Often in childhood we’d be walking and he’d suddenly stop to take a picture of something. It never made sense to me until the picture developed, and then I could see it too. Beauty exists everywhere if you find the right angle.That’s kind of...what it’s like for me. When I realized I loved him, everything he did became a new source of fascination. I adored everything about him. Even the parts of him that are sometimes unintentionally cruel.”

“You almost make it sound nice,” says Zen.

Jumin thinks about the years he spent at V’s side. “It can be.”

“Still, you’ve gotta tell him to knock it off if he tries to pull that shit again. It’s totally unacceptable. He’s known about your feelings for how long now?”

Jumin pauses to think. “Hmm...I told him I loved him when I was 13.”

Zen’s jaw drops. “Dude, you’ve been pining for him for _that long?_ ”

A jolt of annoyance flits through Jumin’s body. “I wasn’t pining.”

“He turned you down when you were 13 and you still haven’t given up on him? I’m pretty sure that’s pining.”

Jumin’s fist clenches in his lap.

“You’ve gotta get yourself out there!” says Zen. “Try other men. Try women; honestly they’re so much better than men. They’re cute and they smell nice. I can-”

“Don’t talk like it’s that easy,” Jumin snarls, standing up so he towers over the seated Zen. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Zen mimics Jumin and stands up, extending himself to his full height, a few centimeters taller than Jumin. Jumin braces himself to be struck, but it doesn’t come. In a motion he clearly learned on set, Zen uses one arm to push Jumin backward, the other to scoop him up by the back of his knees. The end result is that Zen is now holding him like a princess.

“Put me down!” yells Jumin, flailing his arms, but Zen maintains a tight grip on him, forcing Jumin against his chest.

The actor carries Jumin into his bedroom, where he drops him unceremoniously onto the bed and straddles him, hands on Jumin’s shoulders, effectively pinning his arms into the mattress.

“Shut up,” he says to silence Jumin’s further protests. “If I don’t do this now I’m gonna get so annoyed with you I’ll end up kicking you out.”

Zen looks down at him, pink tongue flitting out seductively and licking his lips.

“We’re gonna do the _other_ thing men do when they’re sad.”

The timbre of his voice changes with this last line in a way that goes straight to Jumin’s groin. Zen undoes Jumin’s top few buttons and starts trailing kisses down his neck, pausing to suck on his pulse points and _damn it_ he’s good at this. Was it like this last time?

No, he acknowledges as Zen’s hair tickles his chin. That time several years ago was nothing like this. That time was angry. It was about sex, nothing more. But this time, it seems obvious that Zen is trying to make Jumin feel good too. That’s not something Jumin wants to think about, considering how much he hates the man currently on top of him.

So he doesn’t. He doesn’t think about it, even as Zen removes his hands from Jumin’s shoulders to seize him by his waist, even as Jumin’s arms raise up, seemingly by themselves, around Zen’s back to pull him closer.

 

-

-

 

This time, when Jumin wakes up, Zen is still next to him in bed, sheets draped carelessly over him like a Greek statue.

Jumin remembers times like this with V, seeing him first thing in the morning, sleek teal hair still messy from sleep. It always felt right with V, but with Zen it’s strange. There’s an odd sense of unease in the air, a feeling in Jumin’s stomach he can’t explain. Regret, he supposes, or something similar.

Jumin doesn’t like inconsistency. He wears similar suits every day, wakes up at the same time every morning, has the same routine every night. It’s his way of combating the hectic schedule at work. Jumin likes to have things he can control.

But Zen isn’t like that. Zen is a wildcard, and his ever-changing actions have a way of getting to Jumin and causing him to do things he wouldn’t normally do.

What would V think, if he could see Jumin here now, in bed with the man he claims to hate?

 _“It isn’t like you to not get your way,”_ V had said to him shortly after they started going out. _“That’s how I knew we’d be together. I noticed your feelings a while ago but I’ve been yours for much longer.”_

Jumin sits up against the bed frame and scowls into empty space. It was meaningless, every word. The bud of their love had withered long ago.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

Jumin looks over at Zen, now awake and sitting up in bed.

“Your face has gone all sour. I can tell.”

Jumin tries to think of a catty retort, but finds himself unable. Instead he sighs and says, “I’ve been thinking for some time now...Had I been born a woman, would V have chosen me instead?”

Zen’s eyes soften. He props himself up on his elbows. “I think the fact that you can’t come up with an immediate answer means it isn’t simply a matter of whether or not you’re a woman.”

The white haired man rolls stark naked out of bed, stretching a bit before throwing on a robe.

“It’s probably not the best time to say this,” he continues. “But V truly was in love with Rika.”

“I know,” says Jumin. “That’s what makes it worse.”

 

-

-

 

The sense of loss felt in the RFA doubles the week following the funeral after V alerts the members he’s going on a soul-searching photography trip.

He tells them he’ll be unreachable, but everyone asks Jumin if V had contacted him anyway. No, he told them, V left him with no further explanation for his disappearance. It would be a lie, however, to say V hadn’t contacted him at all. Three days after the funeral, Jumin had received a text from V.

_Did you tell Hyun about us?_

Hyun, of course, referred to Zen’s real name. Jumin had weighed the options. On the one hand, he could tell the truth. He could tell V that Zen knew about his feelings, but not their previous relationship. On the other, he could lie and say he’d told Zen everything. Perhaps it would upset V to think that Jumin had revealed his secret. But Jumin didn’t want anyone, not even the man who broke his heart, to think that he and Zen were somehow growing closer.

(No matter how true that may be.)

Ultimately, Jumin split the difference and left the text unanswered.

With Rika gone and V out of the picture, discussions of a third party dissipate completely. The RFA app Luciel designed goes completely unused for months. Jumin remains in close contact only with Assistant Kang, who buries herself in work to avoid feeling too deeply the immense sadness that has settled around her.

Through Assistant Kang, Jumin is updated about the lives of the remaining RFA members, whom she apparently contacts once a week. Yoosung has lost all will to try hard in school, and is failing several of his classes, preferring to immerse himself in video games rather than studying. Luciel is more somber than before but still seems to be working for his secretive intelligence firm. Zen, whom Jaehee keeps close tabs on, has received a starring role in a fairly promiscuous musical.

Jumin wonders if he’ll ever see any of them again. He misses the meetings more than he’d like to admit, misses pitching ideas and arguing about cats. He misses the RFA.

Taking a card from Assistant Kang, Jumin fills up his schedule with projects to minimize sulking time. He creates an exhibit on cat paws to house at a local museum. He holds a World’s Largest Meerkat contest. Anything fun that will prevent him from thinking.

One evening, six months after Rika’s death, Jumin gets a notification on his phone.

_ZEN has uploaded a new photo._

Jumin blinks and reads the notification twice more. He’d set up his phone to give him alerts when someone posted in the messenger, just in case V returned and wanted to talk to them all at once. Did Zen have some sort of news? Why would he be posting otherwise?

Out of curiosity, Jumin signs in and sees that Zen has posted a _goddamn selfie._

He decides to give the actor a piece of his mind, but before he can even start typing Assistant Kang replies.

 

Jaehee Kang: That is an excellent picture, Zen.

ZEN: Haha, thanks.

ZEN: How have you been?

 

They continue to chat pointlessly for a while. Jumin waits for a break to start typing, but someone else appears and beats him to the punch.

 

Yoosung: Well if Zen’s doing it, I guess this is the best time?

_Yoosung has uploaded a new photo._

 

The boy in the picture is blond, so it take a moment for Jumin to register it as Yoosung. But there’s no mistaking those purple eyes. Assistant Kang replies with a shocked emoji.

 

Jaehee Kang: Yoosung, you bleached your hair?

Yoosung: ^^; yeah, i did…

Yoosung: It’s been this way for a while now, I just didn’t tell anyone

Yoosung: i kind of panicked a few weeks ago. I thought this might help me channel Rika!

 

Nobody replies for a few minutes. Jumin sighs. You idiot, he thinks. You’ve ruined it. You brought up the forbidden word. But just as he’s putting his phone away, the chatroom lights up again.

 

707: Yoosung, u cutie!!

707: looks great!

ZEN: yeah, it suits you lolol

ZEN: What do you think, Jaehee?

Jaehee Kang: It is a bit shocking, but now that I’m used to it I must agree with Zen.

Jaehee Kang: It definitely brings out your eyes.

Yoosung: Wow, thanks! I was nervous about showing everyone.

ZEN: speaking of everyone…

ZEN: Oy! Mr. trustfundkid! We can see you’re in the chatroom you know?

707: speak, speak!

 

Jumin smiles, chuckling a bit to himself, before indulging them.

 

Jumin Han: While bleached hair is discouraged at C&R, I will make an exception for you should you decide to pursue an internship.

 

As the rest of the RFA berates him for his businesslike response, Jumin can’t help but wonder if they all feel it too; the sense of a new beginning. The realization that life goes on.

The next year goes on much like this. Zen uploads a new selfie approximately every 3 days. (Jumin has done the math.) Assistant Kang and Yoosung seem to be the most active members, the former logging in during her lunch break to comfort the latter due to his poor test scores. Even the enigmatic Luciel finds time to come to the chatroom and tease Yoosung about something or other. Jumin joins in the least but he reads every last chat, even the most mundane of them. It makes him feel good, to be a part of something so like a family, something that has proven itself to be unshakable. A new party still seems a long way off, but Jumin can tell everyone’s anxious to talk about it. It’s just that nobody is willing to breach the topic.

But then something happens to breathe new life into the idea. Oddly enough, it starts when the RFA app is hacked.

It’s a rare evening when everyone is in the chatroom together, Yoosung complaining about his bad grades and everyone else explaining why it’s his own fault, when suddenly they become aware that an uninvited guest has entered the chatroom.

As they find out, the newcomer is a young woman by the name of MC, who was somehow lead to Rika’s old apartment and given the passcode to enter. Ignoring all the startling security issues that this brings up, Jumin can tell everyone has the same thing on their minds. Aside from lack of willpower, one of the reasons holding another party would be difficult is that Rika’s apartment housed all of the guest data and contact information. Not even V knew the passcode, so none of it was accessible for the last year and a half. But now that someone else has access, would that make hosting another party possible?

Even more shocking than MC’s arrival is the appearance of V, who has apparently returned from wherever he’s been and seems to be all for the idea of MC taking over Rika’s role.

As V is still the official leader of RFA, they have no choice but to accept his decision. But unlike Yoosung and Zen, who seem to trust MC immediately, Jumin remains wary until Luciel completes a background check on her.

As it turns out, MC really is just an ordinary girl who stumbled into the RFA by mistake. Well, he shouldn’t say ordinary.

What’s impressive about her is just how quickly she integrates into their daily lives. She seems to always be in the chatroom, asking questions about the party and the members' daily lives. She seems to take a special interest in Assistant Kang, to the point where Luciel starts a bet involving not if, but _when_ MC and Assistant Kang will start going out.

Jumin never thought much about it, but it would certainly make sense if Assistant Kang was interested in women. Obviously he doesn’t care if she’s gay or not, but he’s not sure he likes the influence MC seems to be having on her. Less than a week after MC’s arrival she’s already given Assistant Kang the confidence to argue about the tasks he’s assigned her. Hoping perhaps that dating someone might calm her down, Jumin bets 700 dollars _against_ them going out as motivation to Luciel, Zen and Yoosung to push the idea.

He regrets the move as soon as it’s made. A few days later MC has somehow given Assistant Kang the idea to _quit_ her job, leaving Jumin once again without a chief assistant.

There follows a period of a few hours where he isn’t sure what he’s doing. He is vaguely aware of stealing Luciel’s car and driving it into a divider, and only when he tumbles out of the burning wreckage does he realize that what he’s feeling is loss.

Assistant Kang had been the best he’d ever worked with. True, they were never friends, but he had enjoyed her competency and diligence in the workplace. He’s definitely not looking forward to replacing her.

That evening he tries to comfort himself by spending quality time with Elizabeth the 3rd, but he’s interrupted by an unexpected visitor with bad news. He’d hoped the next time he saw V it would be to tell him that he was finally getting the corneal transplant. But V, it seems, has other plans.

“Jumin,” he says. “Take over RFA for me.”

V goes on to explain that, two years ago, he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. He wanted to disappear quietly from them. Jumin laughs. Such a ridiculous notion out of the blue? It must be a joke. Surely, V wouldn’t do something like this, cruel as he’s been in the past.

But V doesn’t laugh back. He doesn’t even look at Jumin, can’t even see him through his useless eyes.

“When did you start living with so little dignity?!” roars Jumin, grabbing V by the collar. “Even my friendship...How dare you treat it like this? Quit with the bullshit that you have cancer.”

“Jumin, I have to go. To where Rika is.”

Jumin feels an ache in his throat. “God...you’re not…?”

“I’m sorry I can’t explain more,” says V, shaking his head. “The hacker Luciel has been chasing isn’t an ordinary one. The RFA could be in a lot of danger. We have to take care of it ourselves.”

V looks at Jumin, eyes unfocused and cloudy but somehow looking directly into his own.

“Please let my life fade out peacefully. I want my last act to be protecting the organization Rika loved so much.”

Jumin knows there’s no talking him out of it. V has always been someone who was impossible to deny. He sighs, nodding before realizing the gesture is meaningless to someone who can’t see it.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll take over RFA.”

“Jumin-”

“But you have to do something for me in exchange.”

V presses his lips into a thin line. “Anything.”

“After you finish what you have to do with Luciel, promise me you’ll get treatment for your cancer,” Jumin says sternly. “I won’t have you die alone and suffering. If you won’t tell the rest of the RFA, at least let me be by your side.”

V smiles, a sad wince of a thing. “Thank you, my dearest friend.

V announces it’s time for him to leave. Jumin calls one of his guards to escort him out of the building, but before he exits, he lingers by the door for a moment more.

“I’m aware that I’m far too late,” he says. “But Jumin...I am so, so sorry for everything. Could you possibly forgive me?”

Jumin understands what V is trying to do, know’s he’s not simply apologizing for his actions at Rika’s funeral. He converted to Catholicism for Rika, but V himself has no grand ideas about God or forgiveness. He simply doesn’t want to die on bad terms with his friend of 20 years.

It is this, more than anything, that forces Jumin to acknowledge that he’s telling the truth. Liver cancer or not, V isn’t going to be around much longer. That’s why he’s making these confrontations now.

Jumin thinks for a moment. It would be so easy to refuse him, to give him the verbal equivalent of a middle finger and send him off, feeling as broken as Jumin did all those years ago. But looking at the face of his old lover, the ghost-white scars painting his eyelids, Jumin knows he can only answer one way.

“I will forgive you. But by no means because you deserve it.”

“You’ve grown stronger, Jumin,” replies V, and Jumin smiles in agreement.

“For RFA,” he says, “I’ll have to be.”

 

-

-

 

Despite the absence of Luciel and V, the party goes off without a hitch. Jumin makes a last-ditch effort to avoid the employee hunting process by extending the offer to MC, but he can tell by the way she looks at Assistant Kang that it’s a lost cause. To top it off, Assistant Kang has somehow come up with the idea to open a bakery cafe and asks MC to join her, an offer which is immediately accepted. The whole affair is quite like a proposal. Jumin wonders if it isn’t some sort of omen of what’s to come.

One week after the party, Jumin returns from work to find Luciel already inside his penthouse, caring for an exhausted V, who is passed out on the sofa.

“How long has he known he’s dying?” asks Luciel without any pretense. His voice is cold.

“Two years,” Jumin answers, deciding there’s no point in lying. “Though he only told me last week.”

Luciel sighs. “He’s in bad shape. After we got out of the hacker HQ he gave up the act, but I think he’s been in pain for a long time.”

“We have to get him to a hospital.”

Luciel shakes his head. “I can’t. I have to get back to work. I’ve already broken a lot of rules. Vanderwood is going to murder me.”

Jumin blinks. “Your maid?”

“Forget I said anything. Anyway, I’m leaving V to you. Bye.”

Jumin watches as Luciel leaves his penthouse. Was it just him, or did Luciel seem less than pleased with V?

The man in question lets out a wretched noise from the sofa. Jumin puts his suspicions aside, calls for an ambulance and rides with V to the hospital, making sure he’s put in a private room with the best care.

For the next month or so, Jumin visits V everyday after work. For a while, it’s like old times. Despite V’s blindness, he is still very much the same man Jumin knew growing up. They chat about mundane daily life, how neither of them thought Assistant Kang had it in her to quit her job, how Yoosung is doing as his new assistant, how MC’s arrival was one of the best things ever to happen to RFA. They don’t talk about V’s illness, and they definitely don’t talk about Rika, but during the hours Jumin visits it’s as if all is right in the world.

Then one afternoon, Jumin gets a call from the hospital telling him there’s no need to visit anymore.

He sits at home that evening in front of a blank word document. He types a sentence and deletes it. Types. Deletes. Types and deletes again.

How does he tell them that V is dead when he can’t even write the word?

He ends up with something emotionless and bland, because that’s all he can muster.

_To the members of RFA,_

_I’m sorry to have to be the one to relay this news, but I found out recently that our leader V was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer two years ago. He asked me not to share this with any of you, but this afternoon I received word that he has passed away._

_I will contact you all with information regarding the funeral in the near future._

_Sincerely,_

_Jumin Han_

He sends the email, drinks a bottle of red wine and crawls into bed. Signing into the messenger proves to be a bad idea, as he is immediately bombarded with questions and accusations. He retreats, curls up with Elizabeth 3rd and tries to fall asleep quickly.

Jumin doesn’t cry. He can’t. If he starts he might not be able to stop.

 

-

-

 

He wakes up the next morning with his head splitting in two. He doesn’t go to work, doesn’t even get out of bed. Instead he rolls over the checks his phone.

He has eleven missed calls, mostly from people at work, shocked to see him shirking his responsibilities. Jumin doesn’t care. He’s the boss, and no one except Director Han has any say regarding his job. He’ll explain the situation to his father later. He watched Jumin and V grow up together and he’ll understand.

In addition to the calls, he has plenty of texts to go through. He has one from every member of the RFA, all varying forms of _my condolences._ The exception is Zen, who has sent not one but seven separate messages, beginning right after Jumin signed out of the chatroom and ending well into the night.

He deletes them all without reading them and goes back to sleep.

 

-

-

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN:_

_Are you okay?_

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN:_

_I know everything sucks right now but you’re not gonna do anything stupid right?_

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN:_

_Answer me you asshole_

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN_

_Just tell me you won’t drink yourself into a coma or whatever. Don’t do whatever moronic thing you’re thinking about ok? For me_

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN_

_I meant for us. For the RFA._

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN_

_Or for me. Whichever involves you not self-destructing_

 

_-_

_-_

 

_NEW MESSAGE FROM ZEN_

_Please_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading chapter two!  
> Starting next chapter it'll be all my own stuff so you won't have to suffer through anymore setup. I glossed over a lot of the conversation Jumin has with V about taking over the RFA so you wouldn't get bored reading stuff from the game.  
> The first two chapters were originally gonna be one chapter, but they got long so I split them up. That's why everything is in Jumin's POV. We'll get to Zen eventually, I promise.  
> Comments are my life! See you all next chapter.  
> Luna


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter HEAVILY references events in my other fic in this series, "A Place for the Two of Us." I gloss over a lot of stuff that happens in that, so if you haven't read it and want to understand everything in this chapter, I highly recommend you do so.

VISUAL NOVEL MODE: ZEN

Zen needs a cigarette.

He’s been doing a good job not smoking lately, really, he has. But his resolve started shattering when he got that emotionless email from Jumin. V’s death had cut him like a knife, but Zen found himself oddly more concerned about Jumin’s wellbeing.  To make things worse, the bastard didn’t reply to any of his text messages, leaving Zen wondering if he even made it through the ordeal.

Zen doesn’t see him again until the funeral. His plan was to chew Jumin out the moment he saw him, but the sight of the normally proud businessman standing alone behind the podium looking lonelier than ever before sucks all the anger out of Zen, replacing it with a deep pity that only grows deeper as Jumin delivers his farewell address. When he finishes the speech, Zen is among the first to stand up.

He tries to make his way over to Jumin, but his feet don’t cooperate, planting him firmly in place in the sea of folding chairs as others offer Jumin their condolences.

_ What am I even doing?  _ Zen thinks. What could he possibly say to Jumin that won’t already be said by other attendees? And why does he even want to say anything at all? They’ve never truly gotten along, and the asshole has been ignoring him for over a week now. 

Somehow, Zen reasons, it feels like they share a secret. Zen’s the only one in RFA who knows what V truly meant to Jumin. Ironically, he’s the only one Jumin can truly confide in. Yes, that’s got to be it. That’s why Zen feels the way he does. Even a dick like Jumin would be heartbroken after something like this. Assuming Jumin has a heart. Which he does. Probably.

Ugh, Zen  _ really  _ needs a cigarette.

He sighs, resigning himself to finding Jumin a bit later, and traipses across the graveyard grass to the parking lot. There he finds his motorcycle and raises the seat, snagging the pack of cigarettes he hid there ages ago.

He smokes two straight through and lights a third, dragging on it only once before a gaggle of women approach him from out of nowhere. He doesn’t know how they found him. He considers shooing them off but finds himself complying with their requests for autographs, unable, as usual, to turn away fans. When he gets back to the funeral, most of the attendees are gone, including Jumin. 

Yoosung, MC and Seven are huddled together in a corner of the lawn, and Zen decides to join them. The hot topic seems to be MC’s feelings for Jaehee, which she refuses to confess due to fear of ruining their friendship.

Zen comforts her the best he can, but it’s hard for him to sympathize. He’s always been good at saying what’s on his mind. If he’s attracted to someone, he tells them, and if it’s not working out he tells them that too. Zen looks at MC and wonders if he’s just never had something he was too afraid of losing.

Eventually they all go their own ways. Zen walks with Yoosung and Seven to the parking lot, waving to them as they drive off in Seven’s convertible. He puts on his helmet and speeds away on his motorcycle, only realizing halfway there that he’s not in the correct exit lane for his apartment. 

_ Dammit,  _ he curses to himself, realizing where he’s instinctively headed. A few minutes later, he parks his bike outside a bar in the theater district.

He walks in to a familiar sight; there at the bar, next to three empty whiskey glasses, is Jumin Han.

“Stand up,” Zen orders without preface. To his surprise, Jumin does so without complaint. “Come on,” he says, taking the businessman by the wrist and pulling him outside. He is met with no resistance. Whether this is because Jumin is actually cooperating or is just too drunk to rebel is unknown.

Zen decides the motorcycle is a bad idea with Jumin in this state, so he leaves it where its parked, instead hauling Jumin over his shoulder. Thank god his apartment is close by.

When they make it inside, Zen dumps Jumin unceremoniously onto a kitchen chair and pours him a glass of water.

“Drink,” he commands. This time Jumin does not obey. “ _ Drink,”  _ he tries again, but is met with only a blank stare. “You’re pathetic, Jumin Han.”

Zen expects some sort of reaction, but the older man continues to do nothing but stare at the countertop. Zen sighs, running a hand distractedly through his hair before sitting down next to him.

“Look,” he starts. “I know everything sucks. V saved my life once, I’m sad too. But you can’t keep drowning your problems in alcohol.”

“Why not?” says Jumin without looking up.

“Because one day you’ll drink too much, and then-”

“Then what? You’ll cry over my dead body? You’re not exactly my biggest fan.”

“No,” Zen agrees. “I  _ hate  _ you. But I have to work with you, and for better or worse I’m the only one who knows the extent of your feelings for V.”

Jumin turns to him now, looking slightly angry. “That doesn’t make you responsible for me.”

“That’s just it!” cries Zen exasperatedly. “It totally does!”

“Well good for you,” snarls Jumin, “because he’s gone now. You don’t have to worry-”

“How many more drinks were you going to have if I hadn’t shown up?” Zen interrupts him. “How long were you going to hide from the world? You need to learn your actions affect people. Do you know how hard everyone has to work to make up for you not being there? Stop being so irresponsible over an unrequited crush!”

_ That  _ gets a reaction out of Jumin. He faces Zen, eyes locked onto his, every feature softening in a way Zen would never expect from him.

“Unrequited,” he says softly. “I suppose that’s what you’ve been thinking this entire time.”

“I’m pretty sure when you love someone who doesn’t feel the same way, that’s what you call it,” says Zen, not certain where this is going.

Jumin turns away, looks thoughtfully across the counter at the refrigerator, and takes a sip of his water. “I told you I confessed my feelings to V when I was thirteen years old. I didn’t tell you what happened afterwards.”

Zen takes a second to catch up. By the time he does, Jumin’s water is half empty.

“Wait, you’re not saying...he didn’t reject you?”

Jumin remains silent.

“Then, you were together?”

A pause, then a nod.

“Until Rika-”

Another nod.

_ Oh no,  _ thinks Zen. If that’s true, that makes everything a hundred times worse. He’d based all of his beratement on Jumin being a whiny baby who couldn’t get over being rejected. But if V had actually been with him, loved him for  _ years,  _ and then left him for someone else...well, Jumin has a little more credit in that case, doesn’t he?

“Jesus christ…” Zen covers his mouth with his hands in horror. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know, I swear, I thought-”

“It’s fine,” says Jumin, calmly draining the rest of his water. “There was no way for you to have known.”

“I know, but I said so many things...I told you to just get over it, to try  _ women  _ for god’s sake.”

“I’m telling you it’s fine. Forget it.”

“I can’t! I need to make this right.” Zen stands up in front of Jumin, turning his face to the side and exposing his pale cheek. “Here, punch me.”

Jumin’s eyes grow wide with concern. “What-”

“Just do it! I won’t move.”

Zen watches out of the corner of his eye as Jumin inspects him, brow furrowed in either concentration or anger. He seems to be calculating whether or not to take the opportunity Zen has laid out before him. Zen hopes he does; the pain will be worth not feeling like he owes Jumin anything. 

“Alright then,” Jumin growls into Zen’s ear, and with no warning takes Zen by the shoulders and pins him against the kitchen wall. Zen has no time to react before his mouth is being claimed, slippery with skilled tongue and brief but sharp nips of teeth. He tastes whiskey.

Zen realizes that he’s being used as he slides his hands up into Jumin’s hair, but he decides he doesn’t care. Jumin is a skilled lover, after all, and it’s been a while since he’s been with anyone. He deepens the kiss, taking control from Jumin, clumsy from drink, breaking off after a few moments to leave a few marks on his neck.

Suddenly he feels something wet drip onto his shoulder. He looks up in time to watch a second tear trail down the businessman’s cheek where it remains, suspended from his chin.

“Shit,” says Zen, sighing and covering his face with a hand. “You’re not okay.”

“I’m fine,” Jumin argues, and indeed his voice betrays no hint of emotion. His eyes are more honest, propelling forth several more tears in rapid waves. 

“You’re not,” Zen says firmly, making certain Jumin knows his word is final. “You’re a mess. And you’re more drunk than I thought. I’m not about to take advantage of someone in this state.”

Jumin opens his mouth, but Zen silences him with a stern glare. The actor sighs again, taking Jumin’s arm and leading him without protest into his bedroom. 

“You can sleep here,” he says, pushing Jumin onto his mattress. “I’m leaving early tomorrow so just be gone when I get back. Goodnight.”

He leaves Jumin staring at him with a confused look, tears still streaming silently down his face. Zen lays down on his couch, unsure of his own motivation for his actions. Why is he so worried about some trust fund jerk? Surely it must be his knight-in-shining-armor complex kicking in, right? Zen’s always liked saving the day, at least for women. Despite his general disgust with Jumin’s attitude and way of life, it’s possible his desire to be a hero could extend even that far. 

That’s what Zen tells himself, anyway. Jumin is clearly hurt and confused, and Zen’s letting him stay here because he feels bad for him. That’s the end of it.

Or at least, it should be. Zen continues to feel a nagging sensation at the back of his brain that he can’t rid himself of, even as evening turns into late night turns into early morning.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up feeling more tired than ever before, with a crick in his neck from his uncomfortable sleeping vessel. Too sleepy to participate in his usual morning jog, Zen instead pulls on his shoes and stumbles outside, yawning, to the fish-shaped bread truck parked on his street corner.

He returns with six pieces and eats four of them immediately. He carries the other two into his bedroom, where Jumin is still sleeping soundly.

Zen stands over him briefly, noting the redness around his eyes from what was likely several hours of crying. He feels another surge of...something. Pity? No, that’s not it. Whatever it is, it’s far from hatred, and it irritates Zen that he can’t seem to muster up any annoyance when looking at Jumin’s sleeping face. 

Oh well, he thinks. He’s got to get to work anyway. Next time he sees Jumin he’ll be back to his normal asshole self, and they’ll go back to their usual routine; yelling, arguing, and maybe,  _ maybe,  _ more angry sex, this time without the influence of alcohol.

In the meantime, Zen leaves the two remaining pieces of fish-shaped bread on his bedside table, with a note reading:

_ Eat these and leave. _

When he gets back from work that evening, the fish-shaped bread is gone, but the note remains, now with an addition:

_ Your mattress is garbage. _

“Tch,” Zen sneers, but when he gets into bed an hour later, he finds his entire bed has been replaced. He tries his very hardest to be upset with Jumin’s nerve, but the mattress seems to be filled with literal angel feathers, the sheets made of pure silk, and that night Zen gets the best sleep he’s ever had in his life.

 

-

-

 

There is an unspoken but mutual agreement amongst the RFA members that it’s going to be a while before their next party. 

That’s not to say that anyone’s being unproductive. Unlike Rika, V’s death seems to put everyone into overdrive, either to distract themselves from reality or to avoid having any regrets. Zen throws himself into his acting. Yoosung begins studying somewhat diligently, Jumin’s hours are longer than ever, and Seven seems to be doing a lot of...whatever it is that he does. 

MC and Jaehee, too, seem to be hard at work opening their bakery cafe. The two women are getting along better than ever, and, according to MC, that’s exactly the problem.

Despite Zen’s continued suggestion to just tell Jaehee how she feels, MC insists that it’s not worth destroying the friendship over. Even after it becomes obvious that the former assistant feels the same way, MC points out the importance of having Jaehee realize it herself, lest she become confused or scared at the sudden catharsis. 

Zen thinks MC is overthinking the situation. That is, until Jaehee shows up at his apartment and asks if she’s a bad friend for wanting to hug and kiss her roommate. For someone who graduated college early, thinks Zen after sending her off, Jaehee is the most unobservant person he’s ever met.

 

ZEN: She literally told me she wants to kiss MC. How the hell does she not get it?

707: lolololol

707: our baehee is growing up

Yoosung: I feel bad for MC, but there’s not really anything we can do…

ZEN: yeah…

ZEN: MC told us specifically not to say anything

ZEN: but UGH! It’s so frustrating.

707: ufufufu

Yoosung: What’s with that villain laugh?

707: I have a

707: P

707: L

707: A

707: N

ZEN: Oh? What is it?

707: what are you two doing this weekend?

Yoosung: I was gonna do some raids with my guild, but what were you planning?

ZEN: I’ve got the weekend off.

707: woohoo! 

707: here’s my plan

707: You know TGI Thursday’s?

Yoosung: the restaurant chain?

707: bingo!

707: they’re usually really busy on weekend nights

707: but I, God Seven, will hack into their reservation system

707: and make sure there’s a table for the RFA!

ZEN: Don’t tell me that’s your plan?

707: gasp! Zen, you don’t like TGI Thursday’s?

ZEN: -__- 

ZEN: I like it just fine, but aren;t you just organizing dinner because you’re lonely?

Yoosung: lol

707: How could you doubt my kindness? I just want to help MC and Jaehee enter into a lovely yuri relationship

ZEN: Yuri?

Yoosung: Seven, save that for the AM chatroom!

ZEN: whatever. It’ll be nice for us all to get together.

ZEN: I feel like I rarely see everyone at once these days.

Yoosung: Yeah! I’m excited ^^

707: [plan established]

707: I’ll forward details later

707: off to outer space!!

707:  _ wooooshhh!!! _

 

When MC and Jaehee walk into the restaurant holding hands, Zen wonders if everything had perhaps worked out after all. Of course, as with most things in life, this isn’t the case.

Jaehee heads to the bathroom, and MC takes the time to explain that her roommate has somehow come to equate physical contact with close friendship, wasting no time in blaming Zen for this new development. (Zen doesn’t deny it. It’s sort of, totally, completely his fault anyway.)

Seven decides to take matters into his own hands. “If we can’t tell her ourselves, we’ll have to catalyze a reaction on her end!”

Thus begins operation ‘Have MC date one of the RFA members,’ and discussion follows regarding which of the people at the table is best suited to make Jaehee jealous. After some deliberation, Yoosung is chosen as the best option.

It’s around this time that Jaehee returns to the table. Having heard only the last bit of the conversation, she surprises everyone by calling MC and Yoosung’s proposed date ‘a good idea.’

Over the next week Zen receives dozens of texts from MC complaining about the situation, but Zen thinks, ultimately, it’ll all work out. That is, until Yoosung and MC literally run away on their date night, leaving Jumin’s very fancy restaurant reservations unused.

This is how Zen, Seven, Jumin and Jaehee end up in the restaurant on the top floor of the C&R building, eating top quality steaks and being serenaded by a string quartet.

“Oy, Trust Fund Kid,” Zen yells at Jumin across the table. “Quit scowling, you’re ruining the view.”

Jumin glares back. “I admit, I am displeased that Yoosung and MC refused my plans after I went through the trouble of renting out the whole restaurant.”

“Dude, your company  _ owns  _ this place. The staff would kick everyone out at a moment’s notice if you wanted it.” 

“Besides,” adds Seven, speaking as he chews his steak. “It’s not like the reservations went to waste! We’re here!”

“Yes,” says Jumin, rolling his eyes. “And what lovely company you turned out to be.”

Zen sets his fork down on his now empty plate. “Heard anything from Yoosung and MC?”

Seven shakes his head. “Radio silence! I have to assume they’re together though, so it sort of counts as a date, right?”

Jaehee, who has been silent until this point, sighs loudly. She’s barely touched her food.

“Thinking about MC?” asks Zen, turning to her.

She smiles a bit sadly. “I suppose it’s obvious. I’m wondering whether or not I did the right thing by instigating this date.”

“You said it was a good idea at the restaurant,” says Zen. “Why the change of heart?”

Jaehee absentmindedly stirs her iced coffee with a long spoon. “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”

Zen expects Seven to say something stupid, (such as _Wah! Are we finally unlocking Jaehee’s origin story?!_ ) but when he looks over, both Seven and Jumin are waiting politely for Jaehee to continue. Feeling pleasantly surprised at the maturity of his fellow RFA members, the actor turns to her as well.

“I’ve never had a good female friend before,” she starts. “I’m not really sure of how to best fulfil this role. I’ve read many web pages and something that keeps coming up suggests that best friends support each other in their relationships.”

“But neither of you are in one right now,” points out Zen.

Jaehee nods. “Exactly. We live together, work together, spend all of our time together...I began to wonder if MC secretly resents the missed opportunity to find a romantic partner. That’s why I didn’t think it’d be a bad idea to set her up with Yoosung. But this past week she didn’t seem to be excited about the prospect.” She sighs again, taking a few sips of her coffee. 

The table lapses into an awkward silence. Zen quickly glances at Seven, hoping the redhead will catch his drift and do something about it. 

“I know what’ll cheer you up!” Seven says, suddenly bouncing out of his seat and pulling out his phone. “Group photo, everyone! Yay, yay!”

“I’d rather not,” announces Jumin, but Seven drags him up anyway.

“Come on, Jumin,” Zen says, joining Seven and his hostage, who have gathered behind Jaehee’s chair. “Can’t you loosen up for just one night?”

“I don’t think-” starts Jaehee, but before she can finish Seven has already handed his phone to a member of the waitstaff.

“Smile!” he instructs as the picture is taken. As the waiter offers the phone back, Zen snags it out of his hand.

“Let me see this, I think I might have been blinking,” he says as he opens the picture. “Ah, just kidding. I look excellent as always.”

It isn’t a wholly bad picture. Seven is pulling his usual excited smile, while Jumin has on his usual neutral but dignified frown. Jaehee, unprepared for the photo, looks slightly surprised.

“That’ll do,” says Seven, reclaiming his phone and quickly typing. “I’ll send a copy to all of you!”

“I’m not interested,” Jaehee says plainly.

Seven presses a button. “Too late! Sent it to Yoosung and MC, too.”

The air is suddenly filled with a strange song that seems to be emanating from Jaehee’s pocket. It grows louder as she takes out her phone. “Apologies, I thought I had it on silent,” she says, quieting it.

“What was that song?” asks Zen. “I feel like I’ve heard it before.”

Jaehee’s face lights up. “I knew you’d recognize it! It’s the villain’s theme from  _ Hell Note. _ ”

Zen blinks. “The murder mystery musical I was in?”

“Yes!” Jaehee nods. “I thought it suited Luciel, so I set it as his personal ringtone.”

“I’m a villain?” asks Seven. “I feel so betrayed!”

“Don’t lie,” says Zen. “You look like you’re happy about-” He stops, realizing something. “Wait, Jaehee, do you have personalized ringtones for everyone in the RFA?”

“Yes, I do. Did you want to hear yours?”

Zen does, but there are more important matters to attend to first. “What’s your ringtone for MC?”

She presses a few buttons on her screen, and a soft, beautiful melody plays. This time, Zen recognizes the tune right away, even before his own voice starts singing from the phone.

“That’s...the love song from my first musical.”

“It is,” Jaehee agrees. 

“No, you don’t understand,” Zen refutes. “That’s  _ the  _ love song. The lyrics are meant to sound as though I was singing to the listener, so it was very popular. It’s the song that made my career.”

She nods again, smiling softly. “I’m aware. Your character sang this song regarding his most important person. As MC is the most important person in my life, I felt like I should select an equally valued song.”

_ Oh for god’s sake,  _ thinks Zen.  _ What kind of logic is that?  _ He locks eyes with Seven, who is wearing an equally exasperated look. To his great surprise, the first to speak up is Jumin.

“Assistant Kang.”

She waggles a finger. “It’s Jaehee, now.”

“Right, Jaehee.” Jumin clears his throat. “Is it possible there’s  _ another  _ reason why you might have chosen a love song to represent your best friend?”

Jaehee cocks her head to the side. Zen watches as her expression goes from confused to shocked to downright fearful.

“Mr. Han, you’re not suggesting-”

The businessman smirks. “Jumin.”

Jaehee is thrown slightly by this sudden reversal. “Yes, of course. Jumin. You’re not suggesting that I have...romantic feelings for...”

Great blotches of red explode on her cheeks, and Zen can actually see the realization wash over her.  _ I’ll never say this out loud,  _ he thinks,  _ but nice going, Jumin! _

“No,” she says, shaking her head vigorously from side to side. “I can’t be. She’s my best friend.”

“Yoosung is MC’s best friend,” Zen adds, “but you’re okay with them going out.”

“T-that’s different,” she argues, growing more flustered by the moment. “Yoosung is male.”

Zen finds his eyes flickering over to Jumin, only to find him looking right back.They both stare at each other for a moment, wordlessly wondering if either of them should say anything. Finally, after an uncomfortable silence, Seven slams his hands on the table.

“Really? It’s gonna have to be me?” he asks, and after receiving no response, he sighs and turns to the woman of the hour. “Jaehee, I like men.”

Her expression freezes in place. “Pardon?”

“Not exclusively,” he continues. “Girls are fine too. Thing is, gender doesn’t matter much to me when it comes to who I like.”

“Luciel…” Jaehee says softly, finding her voice again. “ I had no idea.”

“Would you have treated me any different if you had known?” 

She ponders the question for a moment. “No.”

Seven’s face splits into a wide grin. “Bin-bon! Exactly! And I’m a Christian too, so you can’t use that as an excuse!”

“You seem to have confused wearing a cross around your neck with actual devotion,” says Jumin. “But I agree with the sentiment.”

“I don’t understand.” Jaehee says. "To what sentiment are you referring?"

“What everyone means,” says Zen, putting a hand on her shoulder, “is that you shouldn’t worry about things like that. We like you for who you are. It doesn’t matter who  _ you  _ like.”

She swallows loudly and covers her mouth with her hands. Tears well up in her eyes, and she emits several suffocated squeals, as though she’s holding in sobs.

“Jaehee…” Zen says, ready to comfort her, but when she removes her hands what emerges from her mouth is not sorrow but  _ laughter.  _

Zen can count on one hand the number of times he’s heard Jaehee laugh. It’s clear, like a bell, and the sound immediately puts everyone at the table at ease.

“Hahaha…” she chortles, trying hard to stop and catch her breath. “I can’t believe this...I’ve been wondering what’s wrong with me this whole time and it was something so simple!”

This side of her is cute, Zen thinks, watching as she succumbs to another bout of giggles. Seven looks on affectionately, and even the taciturn Jumin is unable to suppress a slight grin.

 

-

-

 

“All this time,” Jaehee says over dessert, “the answer was love.”

“Isn’t that a line from one of my plays?” Zen asks through a forkful of cake. 

Jaehee beams. “Yes, from  _ Peach Blossom.  _ I have many of your lines mentally catalogued for use when they become relevant.” 

“You can practice them on MC from now on!” exclaims Seven, spraying cake crumbs everywhere.

“Please chew with your mouth closed,” Jaehee scolds. “And regarding MC, I plan to do nothing of the sort.”

Zen sets down his fork with a loud  _ clank.  _ “What? Didn’t you just acknowledge your feelings for her?”

Jaehee hums in agreement. “That doesn’t mean I have any intention of acting on them. I’m perfectly satisfied staying by her side as her friend.”

The actor is spared thinking of some incredulous response by Seven, who receives a text at that exact instant. He opens it, whistles, and whistles.

"Seems like these two are having a good time!" he says, handing his phone to Jaehee.

Her face falls as she examines the message, which looks to Zen like a picture rather than text. He stands up to view it over her shoulder. On the screen is a selfie of Yoosung and MC, the latter having clearly not been ready for the picture. She is positioned in Yoosung’s lap, and he has one arm draped around her waist. They seem to be sitting in a chair by his computer.

“Having second thoughts?” Seven asks as Jaehee furrows her brow at the image.

“It’s not my place...to deny them,” she says, barely opening her mouth. 

“Oh hell no,” announces Zen. “We haven’t come this far for you to just give up. Jumin, they’re at Yoosung’s apartment. You know what to do.”

The businessman nods. “I’ve already texted Driver Kim. He should be waiting for us on the first floor when we arrive.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” cries Seven, shoveling the rest of his cake into his mouth before standing and taking Jaehee’s arm. Zen takes her other arm, and together the four of them walk towards the elevator.

“Where are we going?” asks Jaehee, allowing herself to be dragged along.

“To get your girl!” responds Seven.

Zen nods. “Don’t you think it’s time MC has a say in the matter?”

Jaehee stares down at her feet as they descend in the elevator. She doesn’t resist, even as they pile into Jumin’s car. A black belt in Judo, Zen’s pretty sure Jaehee could get away whenever she wanted, which means she’s at least a little okay with what they’re doing.

The door is locked when they arrive at Yoosung’s place, but Seven, who announces he has duplicates of everyone’s keys, grants them entrance. (Zen plans to have a little chat with Seven about privacy later, but he ignores it for now.)

The rest of the evening goes like this: they force Jaehee into Yoosung’s bedroom with MC where, according to an eavesdropping Seven, they’re finally able to get their feelings across. Regarding the bet made involving when MC and Jaehee would get together, the spoils go to both Yoosung and Zen, who chose timeslots on either side of the date. 

The men play poker as they wait for the women to emerge, and Zen manages to do alright. By the end of the night, he’s got more or less the same amount of cash he had before. Yoosung, a newbie to poker, doesn’t fare as well, losing almost all of his newly acquired cash to Jumin, who triumphs with his natural expressionless face, and Seven, who unsurprisingly turns out to be very, very good at lying.

After several hours, it becomes clear MC and Jaehee aren’t planning on coming out anytime soon. Yoosung nearly falls asleep on his kitchen table, and Zen has to fight to suppress a few yawns himself.

“I can’t hear anything,” Seven says after briefly listening at the door to Yoosung’s bedroom. “Maybe they really are-”

“Don’t say it!” Yoosung interrupts. “I’m already going to have to wash my sheets.”

Zen thinks about it momentarily; Jaehee and MC, laying next to each other in Yoosung’s bed, half-clothed or even naked, panting, dripping with sweat. MC would be on top, surely. Or would the athletic Jaehee let her work ethic come through and take the lead? Either way, Zen has to admit, it’s kinda hot. 

He really shouldn’t be thinking this way about his fellow RFA members, but he’s a healthy young man, and MC and Jaehee are both extremely attractive. What can he do, really?

Starting to feel a bit warm under the collar, he stands up. “I think I’m gonna call it a night, guys.” He turns to Jumin. “Your driver brought us here so I don’t have my bike. Give me a ride.”

Jumin scowls as though it’s a grand inconvenience. “Fine.”

He waves goodbye to Seven and Yoosung and steps out into the chilled night air. Jumin walks stoically behind him. The moment they get to the car, however, Jumin's expression changes to one of hunger.

Ah, Zen thinks as he pins the businessman to the car door. So he wasn’t the only one getting all hot and bothered.

Somehow they make it into the car, with Jumin assuring him that Driver Kim can neither hear nor see them through the tinted glass separating the front from the back. Zen fixes his mouth to a point on Jumin’s neck, just under the collar so any marks won’t show, running his hand down his chest and undoing buttons. He unbuckles Jumin’s belt, snaking it out of the loops and letting it slide into the footwell. 

Jumin puts his palms on Zen’s chest, applying slight pressure as a sign that he’s going to fast, but Zen pushes right back, signalling he’s not planning to slow down. He lowers his head to Jumin’s lap, brushing strands of silver hair out of the way.

“You seem, hah, very eager for someone who supposedly hates me,” mocks Jumin in a breathy voice.

“Don’t you get it?” says Zen with Jumin’s zipper in his teeth. “I can do this  _ because  _ I hate you.”

 

-

-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have literally no excuse for why this is so late, but I hope y'all are still reading it!  
> I'll try to update faster next time. Comments help keep me motivated :)  
> Love you all, see you next time!  
> Luna


	4. Chapter 4

VISUAL NOVEL MODE: JUMIN HAN

When he wakes up the next morning with his arms wrapped around Zen’s slender waist, one thought crosses Jumin’s mind:

This man is  _ dangerous.  _

It would be one thing if it were only sex, if all that existed between them was loathing as they both so often proclaimed. But lying here in Zen’s bed, examining the peaceful expression on the actor’s sleeping face, Jumin is forced to acknowledge that there might be more to it. And that, frankly, is unacceptable.

He knows, as he quietly pulls on his clothes from last night and shuffles out the door, that he should end this... _ something  _ they have between them. But he also knows that’s a conversation he’s not quite ready to have yet. Talking about it would involve addressing some things he’s long decided never to discuss aloud. And, if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t exactly  _ want  _ it to end, either. 

Everything would be fine if only things could stay the same as they are now--a series of one night stands with no meaning behind it. Of course, as Zen has proven time and time again, nothing ever stays the same. Jumin realizes he has to do something to keep everything in check.

So he does what he does best. He takes matters into his own hands. He sets rules.

Rule one: Jumin must initiate the encounters. He reinforces this idea by ignoring Zen’s texts altogether. Whenever Jumin desires a meeting, he sends a message with the day of the week and time. Zen seems irritated about it, but whenever Jumin arrives at the apartment, Zen is always there.

Rule two: no more sleeping at Zen’s place. (Jumin sets this one after reaching for a coffee mug one morning and realizing he instinctively knows which cabinet they’re in.)

Rule three: Simulate distance. If Zen insists on trying to get closer, Jumin must keep pushing him back. He does this by being as brisk as possible at the RFA meetings, openly disagreeing with the actor, often pretending not to hear him entirely. This strategy works for a while, as Zen is quick to anger, but after a few months Zen seems to get the picture and stops attempting to converse with him in public. When they are alone together he says equally little. 

Rule four, the most important one:  _ Never  _ allow Zen back to his penthouse. This isn’t so much a problem, as Elizabeth the 3rd provides a ready-made excuse, but Jumin still fears the day when Zen asks about it. Jumin doesn’t know how to say it, how it’s too personal, how letting Zen into his home would be too much like letting him-

_ Well.  _

It was so much easier, thinks Jumin, when they hated each other.

 

-

-

 

The rest of the RFA takes notice.

_yo wtf is up with u and zen?_ asks Luciel via text message. Jumin doesn’t bother responding.

MC is a little kinder.  _ Are you okay?  _ her message reads.

Jumin starts typing an affirmative answer but finds himself oddly unable to lie to her. Instead he types:  _ I don’t know. _

She responds quickly.  _ Why don’t you come have dinner with me and Jaehee this weekend? _

And so, when Saturday rolls around, Jumin finds himself outside a nearly-finished bakery cafe holding two bottles of wine.

“Jumin, welcome,” says MC, opening the door for him. “Jaehee, he’s here!” she calls into the kitchen. The former assistant emerges from the back, wearing a smile and a rather feminine apron.

“What do you think?” says Jaehee, waving a hand around the interior. 

Jumin frowns. “I think it would look better had you used C&R’s affiliated construction company.”

Jumin regrets the words immediately. Jaehee’s face falls as she gives a small, “ah” in reply. Worse is MC, who looks disappointed but not entirely surprised, as though she’d been expecting this.

“I apologize,” he says, bowing his head. “I am rarely invited out by friends so I am slightly on edge this evening. It’s lovely. Your bakery, I mean.”

They both grin in unison at the word ‘friends.’ “We’re glad you could make it,” says Jaehee. “Although the wine was unnecessary.”

Jumin places the two bottles on the counter. “I didn’t know what we’d be eating, so I brought both a red and a white.”

“Cab sauv and chardonnay, huh?” says MC, inspecting the bottles. “Jaehee, aren’t those your favorites?”

“They are,” she replies, looking pleasantly surprised. “You didn’t go to any trouble, did you, Jumin?”

He shakes his head. “I assure you it’s a complete coincidence. I simply had the maid fetch them at random from the cellar.” 

“Still a nice gesture,” Jaehee says. “I’ve made a chicken curry, so I suppose we’ll have the white first.”

The three of them spend the evening chatting pleasantly over dinner, gossiping about the other members and discussing the cafe’s opening next week. Zen is brought up a handful of times, mostly by Jaehee regarding his newest acting endeavors, and Jumin is relieved to find that neither woman presses him about his personal affairs. 

By the time their plates are empty, the wine bottles are, too. Despite having drunk the same amount as everyone else, Jaehee appears to be highly affected, her face bright red, her speech slowed. When she stands up to get dessert and nearly drops the entire cake on the floor, MC decides it’s time to call it a night.

“I’m sorry about that,” she apologizes as she helps her girlfriend into a cab. “She likes drinking more than she lets on but she’s pretty weak to it.”

Jumin dismisses it with a wave. “Not at all. I find it enjoyable to converse with someone so knowledgeable about wine.”

MC suddenly smirks. “Speaking of that...you totally made that up earlier, right? About your maid choosing the bottles.”

Jumin pauses. “Pardon?”

“You’re telling me someone randomly chose Jaehee’s two favorite varietals? I bet you asked around the office for advice.”

The businessman flushes slightly, confirming MC’s theory. She hums slightly in victory.

He clears his throat. “Yes, well...I feel I owe you both an apology for how I’ve treated you in the past.”

MC blinks. When she gives no further response, he continues.

“When Jaehee was my assistant, I admit I may have pushed her too far at times.”

MC quirks an eyebrow.

“Fine. Most of the time. And when she quit, I considered you as a replacement for no other factor than my own convenience. For that, I am sorry.”

Her face splits into a wide grin, and Jumin feels his neck grow hot. This is really too much emotion at once. He decides to wrap it up quickly before he quite literally starts steaming from his ears. 

“What I’m attempting to convey...is how fortunate I am that the two of you continue to call me your friend even now.”

MC gives him a brief hug and pats his shoulder affectionately. “Of course you’re our friend. Despite all that stuff in the past, you’ve always come through for us. And in a way, that stupid bet you made inspired the other boys to get Jaehee to confess. So you’ve helped us a lot too!”

Jumin chuckles at the notion. “Not at all. I may have helped with motivation, but the love between you was already there.”

“My,” she says jokingly. “You’ve become a romantic, Jumin.”

“I suppose I have,” he agrees. “It must be Zen’s influence rubbing off on me.”

This is the wrong thing to say, and Jumin knows it as soon as the words are out of his mouth. MC’s eyes grow very wide, and she shoots a look into the cab where, thankfully, Jaehee is sleeping peacefully against the window.

“So Seven was right,” says MC, quietly. “You’re involved.”

Jumin shakes his head. “Not like that. It’s only sex.”

“Only-” she starts, and then closes her mouth. She looks down at her feet, then back towards the cafe, to Jaehee’s sleeping figure and then finally back to Jumin. “How many times?”

“You’re going to make me count?”

She shuts her eyes for a moment. “That many, huh?”

Jumin is seized with the urge to deny it, but again, he just can’t seem to lie to her. “There’s no need to be concerned,” he says instead. “I’m an adult and I can make my own choices.”

MC appears unconvinced. “It’s not you I’m concerned about. I’m not sure how much you know about Zen-”

_ Practically nothing,  _ he admits to himself.

“-but I know a lot thanks to Jaehee. And it’s well known among fans that Zen  _ never  _ sleeps with the same person twice. Not unless he’s serious.”

Jumin doesn’t know what sort of face he's making, but he can sort of figure it out based on MC’s reaction. She gives him a tiny nod and a sad but knowing look.

“Mm, I thought so,” she says, glancing briefly back at the bakery. “You know, I wanted to host the dinner at our apartment.”

“Oh?” says Jumin, unsure of how to respond. 

“Yeah. But Jaehee was set on having it here. She wanted to show you how far she’s come, how much work she’s put into everything. She wanted to show you what you helped create. You and everyone in the RFA.”

She turns back to the cab window, watching her girlfriend affectionately.

“Jaehee doesn’t have a family.  _ We’re  _ her family. Me and you, and Zen, too. And if you hurt him I don’t know if she’ll be able to forgive you.”

_ I won’t,  _ Jumin wants to say, but he finds himself unable. Instead he covers his mouth with his hand, sighing deeply and muttering “I know,” into the soft flesh of his palm.

 

-

-

 

“How come we never do this at your place?” asks Zen one evening.

Jumin continues buttoning his trousers without looking up. “Did you forget about Elizabeth 3rd? Your allergies-”

“Bullshit,” Zen cuts across him. “Since when have you given a damn about my allergies?”

The businessman doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing, knotting his tie in icy silence. 

Zen sighs deeply from an edge of his bed. “I know what you’re doing.”

Jumin freezes for a moment, then cautiously returns to his tie. He can see Zen’s frustrated frown reflected in the mirror on his bedroom door.

The actor continues. “Just when I felt like we had finally come to an understanding, you pull away and try to act like we’re complete strangers.”

“I assure you,” Jumin says, attempting to sound calm, “that I have no idea what you’re-”

“Liar,” Zen cries, interrupting him a second time. “Offer an excuse, but don’t just pretend you aren’t doing it. You owe me more respect than that. Or do I just matter that little to you? A piece of eye candy you picked up in a bar?”

“Careful,” Jumin says coldly. “You’re starting to sound like you don’t hate me,”

“Ha, is that what this is about? I haven’t said that in like, six months. And I don’t think I meant it back then, either. In fact, lately I’ve been thinking...I might...I-”

“ _ Don’t say it, _ ” hisses Jumin, finally turning his head to look at Zen. “Say it and it’s over.”

Looking back is a mistake. Zen is a good actor, so Jumin hadn’t heard any wavering in his voice. But with his watery eyes and pained expression, it’s clear now that he’s fighting back tears.

“It’s already over,” he says, cracking a pitiful smile that sends a jolt of pain through Jumin’s chest. “It was over the moment I started to care.”

This, thinks Jumin, is exactly what he was trying to avoid. Everything is crumbling around him, and all he can do is stand still, watching tears stream down Zen’s white cheeks. He wanted things to stay the same. Why did Zen have to decide he wanted more?

But that’s not exactly fair, is it? Jumin has been acting like Zen is the selfish one, but isn’t he just as selfish for wanting to keep their relationship at a standstill? Truth be told, he hasn’t exactly been happy with everything lately. Still, he’s not sure he’s ready to progress any further, either.

He’s never been good at apologizing, but he has to say  _ something.  _

“I’m sorry,” he says, approaching Zen on the bed and reaching out a hand. “I didn’t-”

“ _ Shut up _ ,” the actor spits venomously, slapping Jumin’s hand away. “Use the last bit of humanity you have left and leave without defending yourself. Then maybe I  _ can  _ come to hate you.”

Jumin doesn’t need telling twice. He pulls on his jacket and quickly makes his way to the front door. With his hand on the handle, he hears Zen mutter to his back:

“You’re a  _ coward _ , Jumin Han.”

Jumin walks outside into the chilly night air, only to find himself unsteady. He leans his back on Zen’s door and pulls out his phone to text Driver Kim. The light from the screen hurts his eyes. The clock reads 2:39 am. 

He does his best not to dwell on what happened. It was for the best, wasn’t it? Now they could both go back to their lives. Zen would get over it. Jumin would too. He’s already over it, in fact. Really. 

As he starts walking to the main road, he’s blinded by an enormous bright  _ flash _ . Lightning, he thinks. Perhaps a storm is on its way? Based on how this evening is going, rain would be the logical way to wrap things up. But there isn’t any thunder, much less rain, and he climbs into Driver Kim’s car quite as dry as before.

He goes through his evening routine like normal; pick out clothes for tomorrow, wash face, brush teeth, climb into bed. He runs through his work schedule for tomorrow in his head. He thinks about what he’ll order for lunch. He ignores the ache in his chest, the image of Zen’s sad smile burned into his mind.

That is, until Elizabeth climbs into his bed and curls up next to his face, her wide blue eyes blinking curiously at him. 

She’s always been good at telling when he’s upset, and tonight is no different. She extends a paw to his cheek and offers a gentle mew. Jumin wraps his arms around her and, without warning, begins to sob into her soft fur.

_ Coward.  _ The word echoes in his mind.  _ Coward. Coward. Coward. _

It’s what he’d said to V all those years ago. Who would have thought Jumin would cause the same pain for someone else?

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but all of a sudden it’s morning. Elizabeth, tired of being used as a tissue, had wandered away at some point during the night, leaving Jumin alone on his bed. He looks at his phone, grateful that he’s up before his alarm. He doesn’t feel any better this morning than he did last night, but at least he can distract himself at work.

As he’s getting ready, he gets a call.  _ Father,  _ reads the name on the screen.

“Good morning,” he says as he picks up.

“Turn on the television,” says his father curtly. “Any major news network will do.”

“What is this about?”

“Watch the news,” Director Han answers, “and then meet me in my office when you get to work. We have things to discuss.”

He hangs up abruptly before Jumin can ask anymore questions. Jumin doesn’t know what it’s about, but he does as his father said, switching on his TV to channel 6 news. 

The purpose of his father’s mysterious call becomes clear as the picture comes into view. There, on the television, is a photograph of an all too familiar location. There are some branches and leaves framing the image, making it look like it was taken from inside a bush. It’s blurry and poorly taken, but it’s quite clearly an image of himself, lingering outside of Zen’s apartment door.

_ The flash,  _ he thinks.  _ It was from a camera.  _

The headline at the bottom of the screen reads  _ Secret affair? C&R CEO caught in scandal with actor Zen. _

He was right yesterday, thinks Jumin as he shuts off the TV. It may not have been lightning he’d seen, but there’s definitely a storm coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, which is how long I wanted the first few chapters to be. I could've combined a few to make it longer but I figured it's better to get it out now so I can actually finish this damn thing lol
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	5. Chapter 5

VISUAL NOVEL MODE: ZEN

 

“For those of you just tuning in,” says the news anchor,  “we’re still unraveling the shocking scandal that erupted early this morning, when  _ this  _ photo was posted to an online forum hosting a fan club for actor Zen. The poster, who goes by username ‘Zens_angel26’, claims to have been trying to get a picture of the actor when a different man exited his apartment. The man in the photo appears to be none other than Jumin Han, CEO of C&R corporation. We attempted to get a statement from Mr. Han himself as he arrived at work but he declined to even acknowledge the reporters. Director Han, his father, refused to return our calls but did release a brief statement through his personal secretary.”

“Director Han has stated there will be a press release this afternoon," says the secretary.  "More details will be revealed as they are available.”

“Actor Zen has also refused to speak with us, and appears to be laying low in his apartment. Although the silence of both parties doesn’t seem to bode well for either of them, is it too early to jump to conclusions? Here to comment, esteemed businesswoman Glam Choi and actress Echo Girl. Thank you both for being here.”

“Thank you for having me," says Glam Choi.

“Glad to be here! It’s so exciting to be on the news!” follows Echo Girl.

“Miss Choi, let’s start with you. You’ve worked in close proximity to Director Han. Did you ever interact with his son, and if so, what are your thoughts on this scandal?”

“I’ve collaborated with Director Han on many projects before, and I must say, Jumin han is nothing like his father. Director Han is charming, but Jumin is icy and impersonal. Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that he was hiding something like this.”

“So you suspect the rumors are true?”

“Oh, I’m quite convinced of it. After all, I’m as attractive as it gets and he’s never even batted an eye at me! The only explanation is that he’s g-”

“No, no, no! My Zen is  _ not  _ gay! I’ve met him a few times on set and he’s extremely charming!”

“Miss Echo Girl, any thoughts on why Jumin Han would be visiting him in the middle of the night?”

“That’s...there’s gotta be a reasonable explanation! They work together, don’t they? In that RFA thing. They were probably just talking about charity stuff.”

“Ladies, thank you for your input. Glam Choi and Echo Girl will be with us again after the break. Don’t go any-”

The television clicks off as Jaehee slams her finger on the power button. “Let’s not listen to any more of that garbage. If it’s annoying for me I can’t imagine how you must feel, Zen.”

Zen grunts from his bed, where he lays spread out on his back, staring at the ceiling. He could hear the TV but he wasn’t listening to anything that was said. He’s too busy drowning in thought, wondering where everything went wrong. 

Despite all his protesting to Jumin and himself, somewhere along the line he’d truly come to care for him. When did it happen? Was it when he realized he wanted to protect Jumin? When he learned of Jumin’s vulnerability? When he cried on Zen’s shoulder?

Jumin had caught on early, had tried to distance himself so Zen couldn’t screw up the game they were playing. Because that’s what it was; a game. And Zen had definitely lost.

“Ugh,” he moans, rolling over onto his side and covering his face with his hands. “Why’d I have to fall for the trust fund jerk?”

“Zen…” says MC quietly, sitting next to him on the bed and softly stroking his hair.

They truly are good friends, he thinks, enjoying the sensation of being petted. MC and Jaehee had rushed over before he had even woken up. He was listening to a voicemail from his manager when he’d heard them pounding on the door.

_ “Look, I’m not biased,”  _ his manager had said. _ “Half of my clients are gay. It’s not something you can avoid in this industry. But your ONE job is to not spread it around! Get this sorted out, Zen, and don’t come to work until you do.” _

He suddenly sits up, startling MC off the bed. “I mean, it’s not like I can’t handle rejection. It’s just, I was  _ so sure  _ he felt the same way. I thought we kinda had something. Am I crazy?”

“You are not,” replies Jaehee from the floor, where she sits with a personal computer in her lap. “I was quite certain Jumin had started to accept you.”

MC nods in agreement. “I think he doesn’t know what to do with his emotions just yet. You tried to change something and he wasn’t ready.”

“Was it wrong of me to want something more?” asks Zen.

“Of course not. But Jumin is our friend too so I’m trying to see things from his perspective.”

Zen sighs and collapses back on the bed. “I understand now. This is my punishment for having been born with this face, right? A broken heart, and now I might lose my job because some amateur paparazzi decided to camp outside my apartment.”

As if reacting to the word ‘paparazzi,’ a fresh wave of noise starts from outside the apartment; cameras flashing, journalists requesting interviews, and female fans in huge numbers, all squealing for Zen to emerge and greet them.

“They’re certainly persistent,” says Jaehee, typing away on her keyboard. “But the good news is, it doesn’t look like this affair has affected your popularity on the forums. Some people have even posted fanfiction of you and Jumin.”

“Huh,” says MC, looking over Jaehee’s shoulder at the computer screen. “Some of those fanfics predate the scandal…”

Zen grabs the nearest pillow and uses it to cover his face. “I’m so pathetic. I should be able to shake this off but I can’t even find the motivation to leave my apartment.”

“I don’t blame you,” says MC, shooting a death glare at the window where someone is tapping loudly.

Jaehee shuts her laptop with a soft click. “You can’t let this get you down, Zen. I’m sure Jumin has a reason for what he did.” She stops talking suddenly as her phone begins to ring. “Speak of the devil.” She answers the call. “Hello? Jumin?”

Zen tosses the pillow to the side and sits up, locking eyes with a grumpy MC. “He’s got a lot of nerve, calling her right now,” she says.

“Do I still have...you mean  _ that  _ mockup?” Jaehee says into the phone. “Yes, I do. It’s in pristine condition. When do you...er, that’s a bit too...alright. Give me twenty minutes. Goodbye.” Jaehee stands up, forcing her phone in her pocket and flashing a determined look at Zen.

“What was that-” Zen starts, but she shakes her head.

“My apologies, but there’s no time. Jumin needs me for something important.” She practically runs to Zen’s front door, forcing her way through the crowd by politely mentioning her black belt in judo. 

“Don’t ask me,” says MC in response to Zen’s questioning glance. “Sorry, Zen! She’s my ride so I guess I’m going too.”

Zen smiles in understanding. “Be careful on your way out.

She nods and exits.

Zen feels the absence of the two women as soon as they’re gone. It was nice to have someone listen to his troubles, and now, alone with his thoughts, he feels every ounce of energy draining from his body.

He’d been mostly moping about Jumin’s rejection, but without MC and Jaehee’s voices to distract him, the noise from the paparazzi outside becomes unbearable. For the first time that morning he feels the full weight of the scandal pressing down on him. What if he doesn’t fix this? What  _ can  _ he do to fix it? He’s never known any life other than acting. He has no education, no family to fall back on. For a while now the RFA has been his family, but it seems as though he can't even count on them right now.

On a whim, he pulls out his phone and checks the messenger, where Seven and Yoosung are having a conversation about the scandal. Yoosung seems to be carefully avoiding choosing sides while Seven hints that he knew something like this would happen. Jumin, of course, is nowhere to be found.

He’s probably at work, reasons Zen, living his life and not worrying about anything. The scandal is probably trivial to him. And he definitely isn’t thinking about Zen. 

The actor turns off his phone and pulls his covers over his head, trying desperately to block out the sounds of the crowd outside his apartment. He’ll think of a plan when he wakes up. For now, he just wants to sleep and forget.

 

-

-

 

When he wakes a few hours later, it’s already dark outside, and the din from the reporters has died down. He looks out the window and confirms it; the area seems to be clear except for the usual fish-shaped bread truck.

Hearing his stomach rumble, Zen remembers he hasn’t eaten all day. He’s not sure when the paparazzi will be back, so he quickly pulls on his shoes and usual white coat and heads down the block.

“Sorry, sonny, we just closed,” says the man in the truck as Zen approaches.

“Can’t you make an exception for me today?” he says. “I’m practically your best customer.”

The man leans his head out the window and squints down at Zen. “Hmm, fine. Just this once, because you’re so handsome.”

“Thanks. 6 pieces, please.”

As he’s bagging up the bread, the man eyes Zen closer, as though he’s trying to look straight through him. “What’s wrong, kid? You seem upset today.”

Zen narrows his eyebrows. “Don’t you watch the news?”

“Nope,” says the man, dismissing the thought with a wave of his hand. “I live a simple life, no reason to complicate it further.”

_ Well _ , thinks Zen,  _ I guess it’s not that surprising. He hasn’t ever figured out I’m an actor, after all. _

Fish-shaped bread in hand, Zen pays the man and reenters his apartment. He’s just sat down to eat when his phone rings. The screen reads  _ MC.  _

“Fffello?” he says, his voice muffled due to the bread in his mouth. 

“Zen,” MC replies. “Are you near your TV?”

“Ffss,” he says, and then swallows. “Yes. Why?”

“Turn it on. I don’t know what it’s about either but Jaehee said it’s important.”

“MC, where are you?” he asks. “It sounds noisy.”

“I’m at C&R,” she says. “Jaehee wouldn’t explain but I think she’s trying to fix things.”

Someone calls for MC in the background.

“Sorry, I gotta go. Just watch, okay?”

_ C&R?  _ thinks Zen as MC hangs up.  _ Did they leave me to go comfort the rich brat instead? I’m not in support of choosing sides, but if they had to, I figured they’d choose me, right? Right? _

He sighs as he turns on the television, realizing quickly that he hadn’t asked which channel. Fortunately, the TV seems to know the answer. It’s already on the news channel, the leading headline trailing across the bottom of the screen: C&R CEO ADDRESSES SCANDAL IN PRESS CONFERENCE.

Zen is surprised; he hadn’t expected Jumin to address the public. He figured the businessman would ignore the rumors like he always did when some scorned women decided to trash his public image. Yet the cameras are trained on a podium clearly set up in the lobby of the C&R building. 

Zen isn’t sure why Jaehee wants him to watch. Jumin is just going to deny the scandal, right? It’ll just be painful to hear him say it, how they aren’t and will never be a couple, but Jaehee’s a sensible woman. She’s done enough for him that he knows not to doubt her. He sits on his couch and munches on fish-shaped bread as the newscaster speculates when Jumin will arrive.

A few minutes later, he does, strolling out of the elevator in his usual impeccable suit. What shocks Zen the most is the woman walking alongside him. Jaehee, back in her business clothes, long hair pulled back into an austere bun, stands a few feet back from the podium as Jumin takes his place. Her eyes are sharp and fierce, and she’s carrying what appears to be a large rectangular piece of cardboard.

Jumin speaks before Zen has time to process this new development. “Good afternoon. First of all thank you for agreeing to this conference on such short notice. I would like to make an address regarding the rumors that began last night, as well as answer any questions you all may have.”

He sounds so professional, thinks Zen. Completely unperturbed. As though the events of last night hadn’t happened at all.

“I’ll begin by answering the question I’m sure is on everyone’s minds,” starts Jumin. “No, I do not have any relations with the actor Zen, romantic or sexual.”

The media pit explodes with questions, but Jumin quiets them with a wave.

“Please, hold your questions until the end. I would like to confirm one thing; I was indeed at Zen’s apartment late last night. We were discussing a future collaboration between him and C&R. Assistant Kang?”

Jaehee shuffles up to the podium and hands Jumin the piece of cardboard. He flips it around, revealing what seems to be an infographic of...

Zen nearly chokes on his bread. That’s clearly an image of  _ himself  _ on the poster. In fact, it’s several images, all showing him from various angles and poses. And oh god, what is he  _ wearing?  _ His outfit appears to be made purely of fluffy white fur, complete with cat ears and a tail.

He’s so disgusted by the outfit he almost forgets to wonder how those pictures came to be. He doesn’t recall posing for them. He  _ definitely  _ would remember wearing such a horrid ensemble. Why on earth does Jumin have an item like that?

“As you can see,” the businessman says, brandishing the infographic, “we are considering actor Zen as the model for our newest line of cat food, “Holistic Food for Glorious Cats.” This mockup was designed as an example. This is what we were discussing last night.

A fresh round of murmurs erupts from the media pit. Jumin returns the infographic to Jaehee, straightens his tie, and clears his throat to silence them once more.

“Now that the facts are straight, I would be happy to answer your questions one at a time.”

“Mr. Han,” the quickest reporter asks, “Why were you meeting with actor Zen so late?”

“We are both busy men,” Jumin replies. “That was when we were both free, and so we chose to meet then. Next question.”

“Mr. Han, will Zen work with C&R on the catfood line?”

Jumin considers this question before answering. “That is up to him to decide. I merely proposed the job and offered terms. Next question.”

The conference continues like this for a few minutes, with reporters asking mundane clarification questions and Jumin answering them. Zen gets up to turn off his TV but freezes when a final question is asked.

“Mr. Han, how would you define your relationship with Zen?”

Here it comes, thinks Zen. The moment where Jumin will dismiss him as an asset to his company and nothing more. He braces himself for the words he knows will cut him, but to his surprise, Jumin's reply is something else entirely.

“Zen is a valued friend and someone who understands me more than most people,” he says. “Should he reject this project, it will have no bearing on our interactions outside of it. That’s all the questions I have time for, thank you for attending.”

As Jumin retreats into the elevator, a few members of the press chasing after him with more inquiries, Zen shuts off his television. He presses a hand over his heart, feeling its rapid beating from within his chest. He shouldn’t be feeling this way. All Jumin had done was establish their friendship to the media. But the thing is, he could have so easily denied any relations at all. He could have described Zen as the perfect face for holy cats or whatever the hell it was and moved on from there. But he hadn’t. He’d used a word Zen rarely heard him say. He’d called Zen his friend.  _ And  _ said he understood him. On live television, even.

Zen collapses on his couch and puts his palm on his forehead, trying to dispel the heat rising to his face.  _ Don’t get your hopes up _ , he tells himself, but his heart only seems to grow louder each second. After all, ‘friend’ is better than ‘stranger.’ 

It isn’t exactly acceptance but, well, it’s a start.

 

-

-

 

A few days later, Zen finds himself in Jumin’s office across from the man himself. On the desk between them lays the infographic of Zen wearing cat ears.

The actor stares disdainfully at the fluffy graphic. “So why exactly does this exist?”

“I wasn’t completely lying during the press conference,” Jumin states, shuffling some documents on his desk. “About a year ago I was considering launching a line of cat food with you as the model. I asked for these mockups to be produced. Ultimately I decided against the project but Assistant Kang insisted she be allowed to keep the display. I supposed I should be thankful for it now.”

Zen eyes the stack of papers next to the infographic; the contract for the cat food project. Considering the public nature of both of their jobs, the two men had agreed to consider putting it in motion to dispel more rumors. Jumin had sent him a copy of the contract immediately following the press conference.

“You’re calling her ‘Assistant Kang’ again,” Zen points out.

“Yes. She has agreed to temporarily work as my assistant during the duration of this project.” He looks thoughtfully to the side. “Rather, I should say she insisted on it. She seems to think I may treat you poorly considering...”

An uncomfortable silence falls between them. Zen leafs through the contract, frowning at the legal language.  _ Concerning the actor Hyun Ryu, hereby hereafter referred to as Zen… _

“I expect you’ve read over the terms by now?” asks Jumin after several moments.

Zen nods.

“Good. I will outline the process for you then. After you sign the contract, we will begin filming at once. We will complete the project like professionals, you will be paid, and then we will go back to our lives as before. Acceptable?”

Zen thinks for a moment before shaking his head. “No.”

Jumin quirks an eyebrow. “Do you disagree with the proposed payment? I assure you, C&R has ample resources to work with-”

“No,” Zen cuts across. “What I mean is, I don’t want to go back to how things were before.”

And, in a daring move that shocks Zen as much as it does Jumin, he leans over the desk, takes Jumin by his collar, and kisses him squarely on the mouth.

“What-” splutters Jumin when Zen releases him. Zen is pleased to see the usually composed businessman turning positively pink.

“I love you,” says Zen. The words slip out so easily, like they've been caught in his throat for months. “And I’m pretty sure that, somewhere in that closed-off heart of yours, you feel something for me, too. I know I have a chance. I won’t let it slip away that easily.”

Jumin opens his mouth to retort, but he doesn’t seem to know what to say. He is red up to his ears now. Finally he manages to choke out, “A-Assistant Kang!”

“Oh come on,” teases Zen, licking his lips. “It’s no fun if you run away.”

A moment later, Jaehee enters the office, still in her business attire. “You called, Jumin? Ah, no, it’s Mr. Han again, isn’t it?”

“Hey, Jaehee,” says Zen, smiling at her.

“Zen!” she cries, delighted. “I didn’t know you were in yet. Can I get you anything?”

“No thanks, I was just leaving.” He stands up and walks to the door, turning back to Jumin’s flustered face. “Looking forward to working with you,  _ Mr. Han. _ ” He winks and exits the office.

Man, he thinks, it sure is nice to be the one in control every once in a while. As he strides down the hall, whistling to himself, he hears Jaehee fussing over Jumin: “Mr. Han, are you not feeling well? You look like you have a fever...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one. This is how long the chapters were supposed to be before the first two got way out of hand lol
> 
> Next chapter's the last, to be followed by a short epilogue, and then I can finally get started on the third and final story in this collection, the as yet untitled YooSeven story.
> 
> Hope y'all liked this one, and I'll see you next time. Thank you for watching over these idiots until the very end.
> 
> -Luna


End file.
